Weekend Reading

“The New Working Woman’s Guide to Retirement Planning” by Martha Priddy Patterson ($19.95, University of Pennsylvania Press). Attorney and benefits expert Martha Priddy Patterson has included everything you need to know about retirement in this competent and comprehensive book, but its textbook-like style sometimes makes for a tedious read. Unfortunately, Patterson also offers an extremely conservative retirement calculator that assumes only a 3% real return over time. Such Treasury bill returns don’t reflect the realities of the stock market and could panic women into over-saving or giving up and not saving at all.