March, 2022.

Join us in the Eisenhower Library Book Club Group on Facebook, a place to read and discuss books with our community. We’ll choose a new book every month and share discussion questions, author interviews, recommended read-a-likes, and anything else we can think of to enhance your reading experience. Share your thoughts as you read the book.

This month’s book is We Need To Talk: A Memoir About Wealth by Jennifer Risher.

In 1991, at twenty-six years old, Jennifer took a job at Microsoft and got lucky. She met her future husband, David, and the stock options she was granted were worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. His were worth far more. Years later, when David joined a small, unknown start-up called Amazon.com, she got lucky again. They both did. They were in their early thirties and had tens of millions of dollars. It was amazing. The freedom and benefits were obvious. But after growing up saving her pennies and being wary of the rich, Jennifer was embarrassed to have joined their ranks. She wasn’t worried about being liked for her money, she was worried about being hated for it. She didn’t know how to ensure her children stayed motivated and not entitled, was shocked when a friend asked for $25,000, discovered philanthropy isn’t as straightforward as just writing a check, and grappled with the meaning of enough. For years, she didn’t share her dilemmas with others for fear of being judged. No one talks about money… but we should.