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Hatching your nest egg
REVIEWS BY ELLEN R. MARSDEN With the first baby boomers turning 60 this year, a huge wave of aging workers is approaching retirement age. Whether you're a few years away from retirement, or a few decades away, now is the time to make plans for life after work. If you have even the slightest suspicion that you're not adequately prepared for this important transition, several new books can put you on the path to financial security and emotional fulfillment. Managing your money
Pond's book gives readers practical suggestions on building the best portfolio, getting the best deal on annuities and buying the right kind and amount of insurance. For those edging toward retirement, he includes chapters on pre- and post-retirement decisions, Social Security, estate planning and when and where to retire. You Can Do It! contains checklists and fill-in-the-blank pages to help you get a clear understanding of where you are financially. Pond also includes a special reader website that serves as a resource from which you can obtain the most up-to-date financial information, including the author's investment suggestions.
By Jonathan D. Pond Collins, $26.95 416 pages ISBN 9780061121388
This is not a book on how to invest for retirement; Slott assumes you're already doing that. Instead, he offers guidance on giving your retirement accounts regular and thorough checkups. The book is made up of five easy-to-read sections, with topics ranging from developing a detailed account overview and managing your accounts to what to do as a beneficiary. It also gives advice on how to handle special retirement account problems, such as divorce, same-sex and unmarried couple issues and naming a charity as beneficiary. Slott's no-nonsense approach should help you keep your retirement accounts in top-notch condition.
By Ed Slott Ballantine, $25.95 384 pages ISBN 9780345494559
Slices of the pie
The author outlines a step-by-step process to enable you to make your own pie chart, sectioned into slices that will give you the most pleasure and benefit. From there you add more specifics under each section until you have enough detail to form actionable plans and possibilities. Seeing your plan laid out, based wholly on who you are and what you want to do, can take you from an unenthusiastic "Now what?" as you contemplate retirement, to looking forward to a great time of life.
By David Corbett Jossey-Bass, $24.95 208 pages ISBN 9780787983567
Paradise found
Gringos in Paradise: An American Couple Builds Their Dream Retirement House in a Seaside Village in Mexico is the chatty and charming account of how they achieved that goal. Golson, an editor for Forbes.com and a former executive editor of Playboy and TV Guide, conveys his personal tale with wit and warmth. It was on a trip to Mexico to write an article for AARP about Americans retiring there that Colson and his wife came upon the seaside town of Sayulita, 40 minutes north of Puerto Vallarta. Though it had no traffic lights, paved roads or ATMs, Sayulita boasted three Internet cafes and a great breakfast place owned by Americans. The Golsons were hooked, bought land and began their adventure. Gringos in Paradise is an engaging story of a couple building their dream home and living a retirement they love. It reads like a diary about building a new life in Mexico and developing a deep appreciation for the local culture. Golson's descriptions of the sights, sounds and people of Sayulita will make you feel like you're there—or wish you were.
By Barry Golson Scribner, $26 336 pages ISBN 9780743276351
Ellen R. Marsden writes from Mason, Ohio.
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Media hype and self-serving investment industry scare tactics to the contrary, baby boomers are actually in pretty good financial shape for retirement, according to PBS personal finance expert Jonathan D. Pond. That's part of the good news. The other part is that even if you're doing relatively well, there are ways to do better. Pond shows you how in You Can Do It! The Boomer's Guide to a Great Retirement, filled with upbeat financial and lifestyle advice for those of us born between 1946 and 1964. As the exclamation in the title makes clear, Pond is an optimist and a cheerleader who'll soon have you believing that you can get past the "woulda, coulda, shoulda" and overcome your previous mistakes to build a secure retirement.
Support your 
If you already have substantial retirement accounts, it's important to make sure the money is well protected against common and costly planning mistakes, and structured so that it takes full advantage of tax breaks. In Your Complete Retirement Planning Road Map: The Leave-Nothing-to-Chance, Worry-Free, All-Systems-Go Guide nationally known IRA expert Ed Slott details how to protect and preserve your retirement savings, no matter where you are in the planning process. Slott incorporates information from the August 2006 tax laws, making this a very timely guide for dealing with IRAs, 401(k)s, 403(b)s and other accounts.
What's retirement all about? How does one make it meaningful? These and other key questions are explored in Portfolio Life: The New Path to Work, Purpose and Passion After 50 written by David Corbett, founder and CEO of New Directions, Inc., a career services company for senior executives. In a portfolio life plan, the goal is to create a balance in five areas: work, learning, leisure, family time and giving back. Optimally your life portfolio reflects a balance between your passions and pursuits, a way to plan ahead for the exciting new possibilities in retirement.
In their mid-50s, Barry Golson and his wife found themselves between jobs, contemplating retirement. With modest retirement savings, no pension and no benefits, it became apparent that the Golsons would have to leave the New York area and their previous way of life if they were going to have an interesting and affordable retirement.