Recession Lexicon: Layoff Lit

n./ a memoir or novel about losing a job, a house or your life savings to the recession

Well, you know it’s been a long downturn when the book publishing industry has time to put out recession-themed fiction before the economy recovers. We read the recent New York Times story about forthcoming books…

Social Lives Giveaway Winners

Thanks to everyone who entered our book contest. This morning we randomly selected two winners, and they are Rita M. and Jason P. We’ll be contacting them directly so we can ship Wendy Walker’s totally fun book out.

Recessionwire Book Giveaway: Social Lives

If you’re expecting “recession lit,” a book about triumphing in difficult times, look elsewhere.

If you’re looking for a light, fun read about how rich people’s lives aren’t perfect, Wendy Walker’s new book, Social Lives, hits it….

This Time Isn’t Different

People from Wall Street to Main Street were caught off-guard as Lehman Brothers fell and the rest of the financial system seemed to be on the verge of collapse. But according to Carmen Reinhart, Professor of Economics at the University of Maryland and co-author of This Time is Different, global financial crises have followed a predictable pattern for centuries—and policy-makers and regulators should have seen this coming. Here is what she had to say about the state of our economy, the contributing causes of financial crises, and what we can do to help prevent them in the future.

Recessionwire: The recession has been declared officially over, but what does that mean for Main Street? How long can we expect the impacts of this recession to last on banking, credit, home ownership, loans and the job market?

Reinhart: In terms of the business cycle, we have either just bottomed or are bottoming right now…

Happiness on $10 a Day: Schadenfreude Comes Cheap

Heather Wagner’s witty new book, Happiness on $10 a Day (HarperCollins), explains how to find joy through inexpensive activities like puppy stalking and backyard bungee-jumping. Buy the book — or win a copy by retweeting this post OR by telling us in comments their cheap happiness tips. (Deadline for entry is Oct. 9.) We love this chapter on schaudenfeude–so easy to come by in recession!

“Schadenfruede” derives from the two German terms: Schaden (damage) and Freude (joy). The mighty do fall–and it is mightily fun to enjoy their descent.

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Seeing a former flame in a bloated, tired, or sloppy state when you look fantastic is one of the fundamental sources of happiness in this world. The first part of this equation is strategic: by stealthily monitoring your ex’s online activity, you can pinpoint the party or public gathering likely to reunite you with Mister or Miss Utterly Heartless…

Media Just Wants to Be Free

You’ve slashed your entertainment budget to the bone. No more Friday night movies for you and you’re cutting off the digital cable. But you still need your Mad Men fix and you don’t want to miss the next Batman blockbuster. Thanks to the abundance of the Internet, you can scrap that entertainment budget altogether and go all-free-all-the-time. We’ve rounded up several sources that will keep your media habits intact without burning a hole in your wallet.

TV & Movies

Hulu.com – Why it’s great: New shows, old shows, 144 movies and trailers. The hitch: The new shows expire and the movies are cut with ads.

YouTube.com – Now home to more than just viral videos of six-year-olds talking about Darth Vader, YouTube has a movies and a television section from “old media.”

Freemooviesonline.com – If you’re a fan of the good, the bad and the extra-cheesy this website is for you. Uninterrupted streaming video of all the rubber-suited monsters and spaghetti westerns you could want.

Guba.com – This site has a good selection of streaming movies, especially anime and foreign films of the Asian persuasion. However, like most of the Internet, this site is 90% porn by volume…

The Book Reporter: Bad Money by Kevin Phillips

Painting a portrait of a declining global hegemon, i.e. the United States, Kevin Phillips pulls no punches in telling us just how irresponsible and delusional we’ve been. It’s all there in Bad Money – debt, consumption, and our failure to understand the cultural forces (the Religious Right, oil dependence) that cripple us. Phillips, a leading economist and former Republican strategist, is now a political agnostic who finds much to blame in both parties…

The Book Reporter: Crash Proof

Peter D. Schiff deserves a gold medal, while most of us deserve a dunce cap. Schiff, an economic commentator and stockbroker, was once dubbed “Mr. Doom” and “Chicken Little” by the media for his dire warnings about the real estate bubble and the shaky state of the American economy.