of City-As-School
We won a NYCDOE Civics for All grant. Wonderful titles!! Place a hold on one today and I will deliver it to you or mail it to you. HOW? Email me at lissa@cityas.org the title you want OR
Log into our CAS catalog
with your DOE username & the password: nyclib16.
(Or if you know your password, log in using your DOE email & password.)
FINDING PHYSICAL BOOKS during COVID-19
@City-As-School
Students can place a hold on physical books at City-As by logging into our CAS catalog with their DOE username & password: nyclib16. Teachers use their DOE login & own password. Or email me at lissa@cityas.org.
City-As Grab and Go services start 10/1 in the courtyard: pick up a great selection of free books, crafting materials, and your CAS library holds. Build your home library and study space this fall. New genres & crafting materials every week with quarantining instructions included (see below).
@New York Public Library (NYPL)
Random Walk Down Wall Street by Burton G. Malkiel (read for free)
A controversial book, but one which holds water. One of the main themes is that no type of analysis outperforms the market, or that no matter how hard you try to pick stocks, nothing will be stronger than simply purchasing the S&P 500 and holding onto it.
Specifically states that no prior knowledge is necessary for reading it, something I think points towards a positive.
Distinguishes Investing vs Speculating.
Will have to do more reading, but I would say this is a worthwhile purchase.
Burton Gordon Malkiel. A Random Walk down Wall Street : The Time-Tested Strategy for Successful Investing. New York, W.W. Norton & Company, 2019.
Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham (read for free)
Likely the best investing book ever written, but very difficult and filled with jargon and terminology.
Would recommend it only for advanced readers, but it truly is the best book for those who have that level of skill. Practically unmatched.
Somewhat more expensive than other books on the list, but the full 500 pages likely makes it worth it.
Focuses not only on stocks, but on every area of investment, such as bonds.
Taught Warren Buffet how to invest
Believes in intrinsic value and trading based on intrinsic value
Formulaic approach to investing
Graham, Benjamin, et al. The Intelligent Investor : A Book of Practical Counsel. New York, Harper Collins, 2013.
The Richest Man In Babylon by George S. Clason
As much of a philosophical text as a financial one, The Richest Man in Babylon is a time tested classic, illustrating the path to wealth through hard work, frugal living, and wise investing.
This is told through the story of Arkad, a lowly scribe in Babylon’s Hall of Records. He observed the realities of the free market: having strength and value will make you earn money for others, and therefore yourself. And he shows you how he turned money into wealth, through saving and investing, repeatedly learning from his own and other’s mistakes.
This text provides a valuable understanding of wealth which anyone, struggling to earn and grow wealth, can benefit from. Living within your means will make those wins and vacations feel 10x better than when one enjoys them borrowed.
Clason, G S. The Richest Man in Babylon. Bn Publishing, 2008.
The Infographic Guide to Personal Finance by Michele Cagan & Elisabeth Lariviere
A picture filled, easy-to-understand book on understanding one’s own money.
Encourages and helps young people to adapt the pillars of financial independence, which have been popularized by people like Dave Ramsey. You may not learn how to be Bill Gates with this book, but you will be able to build your wealth and make a solid plan for the future.
Teaches that money is amoral, it can be used poorly or well. Start learning and gaining control of your money when you are young! You will never have to worry about it later.
Talks about investing, budgeting, insurance, financial planning, the whole nine yards.
Encouraged by veteran financial literacy teacher Tony, likely the most powerful and attention grabbing title on this list (From a layman’s standpoint).
Cagan, Michele, and Elisabeth Lariviere. The Infographic Guide to Personal Finance : A Visual Reference for Everything You Need to Know. New York, Adams Media, An Imprint Of Simon & Schuster, Inc, 2017.
Big thanks to Aidan for his passion, Naima for her guidance, and for Tony. All books are on order for our CAS collection. If CAS students would like them as an audiobook, please reach out via email to lissa@cityas.org.
Calling all YouTubers: Playlists are a kind of online binge watching. Perhaps.
Sushma is so clear in her handiwork and you learn so much in so little time!
Indiashastra knows how to augment reading into true learning. I appreciate the very old school humor also.
Forget Youtube. Reading sentences will help you in writing sentences. So let’s get deep but basic with a pencil paper and you.
“reading is not optional.” — walter dean myers
Here are some of our folks at home, reading and participating in all things bookish. In our 3-day intensive, we had discussions on Meet, chatrooms, and reflected on our books via mindmaps and beautiful long pages of writing. Our Read-a-thoners created two collective poem, and you can see their book picks!
“A Month” by the Read-A-Thoners, composed 4/16:
Thoughts
Time
Looking out, looking in
Distancing and connection
Insanity Peace Change
Our collective quote poem, “Snatches of Truth”:
‘What should I believe?’ thought Shadow, and the voice came back to him from somewhere deep beneath the world, in a bass rumble: ‘Believe everything.’” (American Gods by Neil Gaiman-Matthew)
“It’s like I’ve been walking up the walls of a tower my whole life,” “My body parallel to the ground, and then, the world turns and I’m standing straight up, and the tower is lying flat on the ground. Everything is now distorted but my head is up again, and I’m walking forward. But the truth is, I don’t know which way is up.” (Braised Pork by An Yu–Hayden)
“The boy knelt by the hearth, his jacket sleeves rucked up on his wrists like an accordion.” (Anarchists’ Club by Alex Reeve–Nick)
“Dusk is an uncomfortable time, the way the light is.” (Klickitat by Peter Rock-Lissa)
“Just a little bomb and all these people would be gone…” (Dead Man’s Folly by Agatha Christie–Cash)
“In major cities wracked by the drug war, [4 of 5] young African-American men are subject to legalized discrimination for the rest of their lives” (The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander–Olivia)
“You get to the other side of the tightrope….” (Love Hurts by Rodro Linzler–Desiree)
“I was living in a self-destructive riot of sensuality, and while my schoolmates saw me as a leader, a devil of a fellow and a damned sharp and clever guy, deep inside me hid a timid soul fluttering with fear” (Demian by Herman Hesse–Hannah)
Calling all writers: Join the Why I Rise Poetry contest: deadline is May 8th
“Turn a bad experience into something good” Details here.
This is a short doc about the Why I Rise movement:
Along with ART, we celebrate the EARTH with the Staten Island Museum–April 25th at noon a whole playlist of How-to videos will drop….how to make ink with walnuts, how to make a hydroponics system using a recycled 5-gallon water bottle, how to infuse cooking oils with seeds and herbs, and much more!
NY Wild Film Festival – Watch films about our EARTH….check out the free streaming movies on darkness and endangered “language of light” of fireflies celebrating WILD NYC:
Brilliant Darkness: Hotaru in the Night from BonSci Films on Vimeo.
NYC’s 520 miles of waterfront!:
Poem of the week: “Kindness” by Naomi Shihab Nye
ONE BRONX ONE BOOK CLUB goes online!
MIT Open Courseware – Check out their classes for high school students
Curated list of ebook & audiobooks for City-As-School
Request-a-book for City-As-School’s digital collection
i’m reading…..
Now many people who live with HIV are undetectable, and therefore can’t transmit the disease, but are still living with shame and real fear of rejection despite their caution, their honesty. Meet three guys with three different statuses, whose lives intersect at an HIV clinic in Brazil…..and walk in their shoes for a while….and enter their world…..for fans of Raziel Reid’s jaw-dropping, unforgettable When Everything Feels like the Movies .
Comic book artist Kelly Fernandez came to give our student artists a glimpse into the ways young artists move with integrity, hope, and poise into the publishing world. She was warm, creative in her presentation and very hands-on in her demo of zine making. With the funds from the NYCDOE grant to support our Respect for All events to promote underrepresented voices, we were able to invite her and give students a copy of Latinx comic anthology Tales from La Vida.
The students said her talk was VERY helpful–here is a glimpse. Can’t wait for her debut graphic novel, Manu, in Fall 2020.
Dear Readers&Writers,
Abdii of the Beacon Program and I are co-hosting a discussion and writing group around speculative fiction. Come join us Wednesdays and Thursdays at lunch. We will send stories out a week in advance and meet to discuss them together or write together using prompts. 
