Reader recommendation: The Fine Print

Monitor readers share their favorite book picks.

I am reading The Fine Print: How Big Companies Use “Plain English” To Rob You Blind by David Cay Johnston. When Michigan state politicians, in a state report, issued a concluding nearly 50-word sentence on taxes being paid to a company for shooting a film in the state, people could not understand what it meant. Johnston read it and says it was “bureaucratese” for, essentially, robbing Michigan taxpayers.  Public outrage and bad press caused Bank of America to cancel plans to charge millions of customers a $5 monthly fee for using their debit cards. It was a case of “fee fatigue,” writes Johnston in this fast-paced investigative look at how corporate America gets rich at the expense of their customers.