Book Sneeze: Popes and Bankers

Several months ago, I joined Book Sneeze, a site where bloggers can get free books as long as they submit reviews of the book.  You have to review it on your own blog and on another consumer retail site, such as Amazon.  (You do get to choose what book you read from the available list.)

I was very excited to join the site and picked out the book Popes and Bankers by Jack Cashill. It's a non-fiction book chronicling the history of credit and debt all throughout the ages from ancient Greece to modern times (to AIG as the title indicates). I was initally very excited about reading the book.  My husband and I had just finished Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University and we were re-energized on staying out of debt and building our savings.  In light of that, I thought this would be the perfect book to read.  From the description, I sounded like it would reinforce our view on debt.

What I didn't know was how incredibly boring the book would be.  Don't get me wrong, I knew it wouldn't be easy reading like a fiction book would have, but I have read plenty of non-fiction books that are interesting and make you want to read more.  This is not one of them.  One whole chapter was dedicated to Dante's Inferno and discussed in detail what level of hell a debtor was sentenced to.  In my opinion, that could have been summarized in one or two sentences instead of a whole chapter.

Maybe a more money/finance minded person would have found redeeming qualities in the book and enjoyed reading but I certainly didn't.  Hopefully I can make a better choice for the next book.