I watched the episode of Mad Money when host Jim Cramer apologized for letting down his viewers by supporting Wachovia's Bob Steel.

He looked quite distraught when telling viewers to buy up the company stock two weeks earlier.  Then Wachovia looked like it would be taken over by Citigroup in a deal that would have wiped out shareholders. This was the same day the U.S. House originally failed to pass the $700 billion bailout.

Cramer slapped Steel on the Wall of Shame, but then the show learned of a Wachovia deal with Wells Fargo, which benefited shareholders. So, Cramer apologized again and removed Steel from the Wall of Shame.

But that raises the question, how much can we really trust what bank CEOs say?

In Martha Stout's The Sociopath Next Door, the psychologist-author warns people against a minority of the population, but dangerous nevertheless.

These people may or may not be violent, but they wage psychological warfare and Stout shows how it's best to keep away from them. This is the first time I've heard of a psychological equivalent of  "evil."

I bought the book because when I googled "sociopath," curious as to the exact definition, I found a profile that fit my father's personality perfectly. Let's just say I grew up with a not-so-nice dad.

After reading Stout's book, I finally figured out why my dad acted the way he did after years and years of struggling to figure it out. I wish I had known about this book sooner, as I'm sure many others would if they ever lived with or befriended a sociopath.

Sociopaths may act like they care or feel sympathy, but they don't, Stout says. It's all about control with them and ultimately, most sociopaths end up using you for their own purposes.

They have a charisma that will suck you in, but beware, Stout says. Sociopaths are incapable of love or feeling guilt and in that way are life's "devils."

Maybe this book can help you recognize them before you fall into their trap.

On my way to Padre Island National Seashore one weekend, my husband and I stopped for drinks and snacks at Wal-Mart.

It was then I noticed I forgot to pack any reading material. I need to read on the beach. It's part of the experience.

In frustration, I looked through all the Wal-Mart bestsellers. It was like someone rounded up all the kinds of books I hated and stacked them in one place. I saw "Savannah Breeze" by Mary Kay Andrews.

Hoping it would be a good beach read, I dropped the book in the basket. Laying on the sand in the next few hours, I felt like I was transported to Savannah's Tybee Beach.

The main character BeBe's relationship with men reminded me of Sex and the City. Her relationship with her friend Weezie was adventurous and I liked the quirkiness of both.

The story turns into a mystery as BeBe searches for the boyfriend who scammed her out of millions. In order to make ends meet in the meantime, she must fix up a dilapidated inn and work her butt off.

She tries so hard to get back the life she had, she almost misses the new life she never knew she wanted. Yes, she meets someone in the end.

All in all, the book was a good leisure read that made me feel like I was hanging out with my girlfriends.

An article in the New York Times Magazine, "Teaching Boys and Girls Separately," discusses a new trend of all-girl and all-boy classrooms in public schools.

Theorist and author Leonard Sax convinces parents that single-sex education is the way to go, based on differences in biology of the sexes. He adjusts wall colors and volume of teaching according to gender. He assumes boys love action while girls love color and nuance.

He holds up Foley Intermediate, a school in Foley, Ala., as a great example of success. The article describes how the boys' teacher reads Gary Paulsen's "Hatchet" while the girls sing "Always Sisters" and experiment with how oil and water don't mix, much like the grease floats on top of the water when doing dishes.

The author of the article explores the problems of teaching based on gender and how segregation may develop into unequal teaching. She ends on the discussion that co-ed education helps develop a sense of tolerance and community -- essentially, social skills.

For me personally, I loved reading the "Hatchet" in elementary school and I would have hated to miss that because my gender says I like something different.

Sure, experiment with teaching styles. Single-sex education has worked for many in private schools. But I'm a little afraid of a gender-based curriculum.

What are your thoughts?

Reading Bill McKibben's Deep Economy opens your eyes to the smallness of the world and the need to be more responsible in our global community.

While questioning whether money and material possessions help in our quest for happiness, he advocates returning to local economies and communities. The author argues for the need for communities to be more self-sufficient in a future world of energy and food crises as the populations of China and India grow.

It sort of reminds me of Thomas Jefferson advocating for the agricultural way of life. McKibben said a sense of connectedness to those around us would help us be more responsible in terms of energy efficiency, keeping the environment intact and even paying living wages to employees.

It may even solve the obesity problem, he says. If we eat locally and take the time to cherish and cook food from the local farmers' market, maybe we wouldn't consume so many empty calories. We would be filled with the satisfaction of belonging to something bigger than ourselves. He argues this would help with our happiness as well.

McKibben argues for a change in thinking about our consumer-driven economy. Less can be more.

While this manifesto seems a little idealistic, it discusses the issues that will affect our lives the most in the coming decades. 

A few years back I read Octavia Butler's Xenogenesis trilogy and I thought it was some of the most intelligent science fiction I've read.

Butler takes us through a world of colonization and slavery through Dawn, Adulthood Rites and Imago. Aliens come to Earth in search of resources and plan to mix with humans for genetic diversity.

The humans don't have much choice and have to hear how superior the aliens' genes are. But the aliens also criticize the humans' hierarchical way of thinking.

When the main character Lilith has a hybrid son with one of the aliens, he fights for humans to once again mate on their own and rekindle humanity.

Butler uses metaphor to criticize human nature and provides insight into the psychology of a race of people being dominated by another.

Her fiction also discusses how humans use up environmental resources and simply go to another place for more.

Since we're well into black history month, I'm going to recall and rehash my favorite black authors and books.

I'll start with Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye. This book breaks readers' hearts as they learn about Pecola, who thinks herself ugly and wishes for blue eyes because she believes they are more beautiful than her brown ones.

Of course, this shows how she and all of us are socialized to believe in certain norms. She wants blue eyes because she reads the Dick and Jane books and she knows people are nicer to people that look like them. As a child, she doesn't yet truly understand prejudice or racism, but she feels the effects.

The book takes place in the Midwest during the Great Depression and delves into issues of neglectful parenting, sexual abuse of children and how a community fails to intervene.

We're left to question how the world is full of so much hate when most people yearn to be loved.

A couple of friends gave me and my husband The History of Beer in America by Bill Yenne, which tells about America's beer brewing legacy, starting with the colonies and corn-based beer.

The best part of the gift was that it came with a tin bucket of 18 beers of varying recipes collected from American history. It definitely added sensory elements to the reading. I've always approved of hands-on learning.

The book continues on a tour of famous breweries and taverns, even the in-house breweries of our first presidents. George Washington loved his dark porter beer.

With German immigrants came amber and lighter lager. The coffee table book shows letters and poems begging for this beer. And then industry begins. It was fun to see where many of the better-known beer companies originated.

Now I need a history of liquor book.

My friend Walter stole a book from The Library, a downtown pub in Austin, because of its title The Walter Syndrome.

He read it simply because it contained his name. He said the book touched on the trend of naming sons "Walter" in the 30s. Reviews of the book indicate the author Richard Neely crammed as many 30s nouns into the book as possible in this historical mystery thriller.

I made fun of my friend, but then if I came across a book title with my name in it, I'd at least skim the pages. In fact, I like googling the meaning of my name and seeing how different regions and people across the globe make different associations with my name.

From older Americans, I get, "Oh, Tara, like from Gone with the Wind?"

From younger Americans, it's Tara Reid. From Indians it's either "star" or the Hindu goddess Tara. For the Irish, it's the hill of Tara.

I just think it's amusing how interested we're so interested in ourselves we would judge a book by its cover, at least if it had our name on it.

My friend Liz gave me the hardback What is my cat thinking? book guide as she knows we love talking about our pet cats and their antics.

The 90-page easy-to-read book by Gwen Bailey didn't tell me much more than I already figured out, but it definitely clarified a few behaviors. Plus, it had the cutest cat photos.

This book is a great coffee table book. Young children who get a kitten as a pet could probably learn a lot from this as well, especially if they cannot understand why cats don't want to be constantly held and squeezed.