Building Wealth with Dividend Stocks by Joseph Tigue - I read this American book because Tigue worked for Standard & Poors for decades: they have the data...the proof that dividend investing works. (The hard-cover book, McGraw Hill, is a compact 117 pages with 200 or so more pages in Appendix...great S & P data, but it's all American.).
Building Wealth with Dividend Stocks costs $34 Canadian. There are nine pages really worth reading: that's about $4 a page. If you learn the lessons on those nine pages it will be worth every cent. If you wish to learn about dividend investing, I suggest you buy Building Wealth with Dividend Stocks. You will find out about dividend investing, hopefully be convinced that dividend growth investing works, and, if you are still in your 40s or 50s and follow the advice given, you will be many ten of thousands of dollars richer in retirement. All for $34...the price of a nice bottle of ice wine. If you don't like investing books, and would rather be reading something else, read the nine pages and then maybe the concise summarys at the end of each chapter.
THE NINE PAGES:
Page 110 and Chapter 5 - pages 63 through 70. Here you will find some thoughts on yield on cost (I'm not the only one who advocates this concept of yield on cost) and a great example of profiting from dividend growth.
Then, on page 66 opposite the table of 'Stocks with Strong 10-Year Yields' (it includes eight Canadian stocks) you will find this gem: "Many of these stocks¹ now provide above-average yields on their 1995 prices. Assuming there are no dividend cuts, with just the dividends from these issues, the returns on the stocks over 10 years will outpace the average annual total return of 11.9 percent that Standard and Poor's has posted since 1926. If price appreciation were factored in, the returns are juicy indeed." ¹ Stocks with Strong 10-Year Yields
I liked the simple chart and comment on page 70 about high current dividend vs. a low yield but growing dividend "choose the latter", Tigue says. He repeats this theme through out his book.
Here are the chapters:
1. Why Dividends are a Key Factor in a Successful Investment Program
2. The More Favorable Dividend Tax Rate - Notice there's no 'u' in favourable. This chapter is about the American Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconcillation Act...useless to us, really.
3. How to find the best dividend payers - covers the important ratios: payout ratio, cash flow, core earnings...
The first page of Chapter 3 will save you from a costly mistake and it's worth the price of the book again to learn this lesson: "the worst way to come up with a list of candidates" to provide you with income is to "start and end the search by looking for the highest-yielding issues." p 29
4. Traditional income stocks - a page or so each of industry information about the utilities, banks, REITs, telecomminications, pharmaceuticals, energy stocks and the like.
* 5. Here is the required reading...it's great. Go slowly. Savour Tigue's thoughts...he knows.
6. DRIPs - Some people like to do this. I re-invest dividends, but not this way.
7. I skipped C-7 on dividend oriented mutual funds and FTFs even though there was a couple of pages about hidden fund fees and an explanation of expense ratios and withdrawal plans.
8. Tigue outlines a number of dividend strategies, Dogs of the Dow, for instance, and concludes:
"The strategy of buying stocks with relatively low yields and a record of of sizable dividend increases, as well as at least a 10-year history of steady dividend boosts, get our vote as the best blueprint for a winning long-term investment portfolio." page 110
9."While bonds offer portfolio diversification and an income stream, we hope that you have been convinced by reading this book that investment in stocks of companies that have strong dividend records is the better way to meet your long-term investment objectives." page 117

Extra thoughts:
INDEX INVESTING: "In the past 75 years, Tigue says, "there have been ten year periods where dividend have provided the only return for the S&P 500." Think about that for a minute and forget about index investing.
"If you hold a dividend-paying stock for a certain number of years - particularly one that boosts its payout regularly - your dividend could eventually cover what you paid for the shares."
Building Wealth with Dividend Stocks is not a bad book for novices, actually...but for the American examples. Chapter 5 with its page on 'yield on cost' is worth the price of the book: $34. If you understand this and believe in it as I do, you'll be richer by thousands upon your retirement. Chapter 3 on ratios is good too.
Worried about falling stock prices? Don't be: "Dividend payers fluctuate less because, when stock prices are falling investors have a monetary incentive to hang onto them."
Bookstore: If you are standing in a book store considering this book, read page 66 while glancing at the table on page 67. Then flip to read the bottom of page 110. Finally, read the second last paragraph of the book on page 117 or read #9 above. This is the message of Building Wealth with Dividend Stocks by Joseph Tigue.

To protest book pricing ($34 Cdn is not $25 U.S.), you could do what I do: try to buy Building Wealth with Dividend Stocks with $25 American dollars at Chapters. They will not do it. Still being polite, because it is not the fault of the sales clerk, leave the book on the counter, and exit. I then buy the book at an independent book store. They need the extra few dollars more than Heather.

OLIVE OIL
"olive oil is superior to other monounsaturated fats"
"olive oil contains lots of polyphenols, plant substances that appear to protect the heart"
"virgin olive oil has much higher amounts of polyphenals"
Paul Taylor, Globe and Mail, November 2006