s marriage and the loss of his large Manhattan apartment, and he's working hard reviewing movies and has found a new love.

Groovy, but hardly instructive for other investors -- except as a bad example.

Heck, he still hasn't learned his lesson. By the end of the book he's wondering if it's time to invest in Wi-Fi.

If learning how to invest wisely is your main goal, A Mathematician Plays the Stock Market by John Allen Paulos is your better choice. He too got caught up in t

It takes guts to lay your personal and financial life on the line as Denby has done in this chronicle about his misadventures in the late stages of the dotcom bull market.

It's an object lesson in how not to let your personal life affect your investing decisions. David Denby is a great negative role model -- a successful intellectual sucked into the stock market when the big money had already been made.

Denby has for many years been a movie reviewer for either NEW YORK MAGAZINE or THE NEW YORKER and was married to a successful novelist. How many ways can you say, "Old media?" He's a prime example of an East Coast literary establishment member who's benefited more than he realizes from his location and position. How many other movie reviewers in this country can afford apartments in Manhattan and to lose $1 million through bad investments?

To his credit, he does mention up front that he realizes that talk of money usually brings up either envy or contempt. Yes, I envy the opportunity he's had to spend his adult life viewing and writing about movies for an upper middle class income.

Denby is not a man used to thinking about, researching or analyzing investments. Prior to 2000, he and his wife had money in conventional mutual funds and bonds. He got caught up in the dot com/high tech mania toward the end (just a few months prior to the March 2000 "Tech Wreck") in association with the unwanted end of his marriage. Although he's quite introspective, he doesn't mention the possibility that he lost he and his wife's money as unconscious revenge on her for breaking up with him, though that is difficult for a reader to dismiss (or, for that matter, to prove without access to the author's innermost heart and unconscious mind).

He does strongly imply that getting caught up in the stock market bubble was a part of his personal grieving process. At the end, a million dollars poorer, he's resigned himself to the breakup of his marriage and the loss of his large Manhattan apartment, and he's working hard reviewing movies and has found a new love.

Groovy, but hardly instructive for other investors -- except as a bad example.

Heck, he still hasn't learned his lesson. By the end of the book he's wondering if it's time to invest in Wi-Fi.

If learning how to invest wisely is your main goal, A Mathematician Plays the Stock Market by John Allen Paulos is your better choice. He too got caught up in th

E or THE NEW YORKER and was married to a successful novelist. How many ways can you say, "Old media?" He's a prime example of an East Coast literary establishment member who's benefited more than he realizes from his location and position. How many other movie reviewers in this country can afford apartments in Manhattan and to lose $1 million through bad investments?

To his credit, he does mention up front that he realizes that talk of money usually brings up either envy or contempt. Yes, I envy the opportunity he's had to spend his adult life viewing and writing about movies for an upper middle class income.

Denby is not a man used to thinking about, researching or analyzing investments. Prior to 2000, he and his wife had money in conventional mutual funds and bonds. He got caught up in the dot com/high tech mania toward the end (just a few months prior to the March 2000 "Tech Wreck") in association with the unwanted end of his marriage. Although he's quite introspective, he doesn't mention the possibility that he lost he and his wife's money as unconscious revenge on her for breaking up with him, though that is difficult for a reader to dismiss (or, for that matter, to prove without access to the author's innermost heart and unconscious mind).

He does strongly imply that getting caught up in the stock market bubble was a part of his personal grieving process. At the end, a million dollars poorer, he's resigned himself to the breakup of his marriage and the loss of his large Manhattan apartment, and he's working hard reviewing movies and has found a new love.

Groovy, but hardly instructive for other investors -- except as a bad example.

Heck, he still hasn't learned his lesson. By the end of the book he's wondering if it's time to invest in Wi-Fi.

If learning how to invest wisely is your main goal, A Mathematician Plays the Stock Market by John Allen Paulos is your better choice. He too got caught up in t

Yes, I envy the opportunity he's had to spend his adult life viewing and writing about movies for an upper middle class income.

Denby is not a man used to thinking about, researching or analyzing investments. Prior to 2000, he and his wife had money in conventional mutual funds and bonds. He got caught up in the dot com/high tech mania toward the end (just a few months prior to the March 2000 "Tech Wreck") in association with the unwanted end of his marriage. Although he's quite introspective, he doesn't mention the possibility that he lost he and his wife's money as unconscious revenge on her for breaking up with him, though that is difficult for a reader to dismiss (or, for that matter, to prove without access to the author's innermost heart and unconscious mind).

He does strongly imply that getting caught up in the stock market bubble was a part of his personal grieving process. At the end, a million dollars poorer, he's resigned himself to the breakup of his marriage and the loss of his large Manhattan apartment, and he's working hard reviewing movies and has found a new love.

Groovy, but hardly instructive for other investors -- except as a bad example.

Heck, he still hasn't learned his lesson. By the end of the book he's wondering if it's time to invest in Wi-Fi.

If learning how to invest wisely is your main goal, A Mathematician Plays the Stock Market by John Allen Paulos is your better choice. He too got caught up in t

rospective, he doesn't mention the possibility that he lost he and his wife's money as unconscious revenge on her for breaking up with him, though that is difficult for a reader to dismiss (or, for that matter, to prove without access to the author's innermost heart and unconscious mind).

He does strongly imply that getting caught up in the stock market bubble was a part of his personal grieving process. At the end, a million dollars poorer, he's resigned himself to the breakup of his marriage and the loss of his large Manhattan apartment, and he's working hard reviewing movies and has found a new love.

Groovy, but hardly instructive for other investors -- except as a bad example.

Heck, he still hasn't learned his lesson. By the end of the book he's wondering if it's time to invest in Wi-Fi.

If learning how to invest wisely is your main goal, A Mathematician Plays the Stock Market by John Allen Paulos is your better choice. He too got caught up in t

s marriage and the loss of his large Manhattan apartment, and he's working hard reviewing movies and has found a new love.

Groovy, but hardly instructive for other investors -- except as a bad example.

Heck, he still hasn't learned his lesson. By the end of the book he's wondering if it's time to invest in Wi-Fi.

If learning how to invest wisely is your main goal, A Mathematician Plays the Stock Market by John Allen Paulos is your better choice. He too got caught up in the high tech boom -- more specifically, fell in love with WorldCom -- but he uses his professional wisdom to learn the numbers of investing.

Denby examines the more human, psychological aspects: greed, the entrepreneurial spirit, and American society. Along the way, his journalistic training comes out and he presents interesting portraits of some important boom figures, such as Henry Blodget the analyst who hyped the New Economy and was eventually barred from ever working on Wall Street.

Denby also became friends with Sam Waksal, the CEO of ImClone. That's the stock Martha Stewart was convicted of insider trading over. Waksal was not only a good friend of Ms. Stewart's, he dated her daughter. Does that tidbit of what should be strictly gossip give you a new perspective on whether or not she was guilty as charged? I'd always thought ImClone was just one more stock in Ms. Stewart's portfolio, but that obviously wasn't true.

Denby's description of Waksal living high in Manhattan society for 15 years on the strength of the promise of ImClone's cancer drug raises questions of the propriety of how biotech executives run their businesses.

No matter what your own background -- learn from this book. Don't buy into a stock market boom as a way of working out your personal issues.