"The Investment Answer" by Daniel C. Goldie, Gordon S. Murray

In November, 2010, The New York Times wrote this about the book and author:

[When] Mr. Murray, a former bond salesman for Goldman Sachs who rose to the managing director level at both Lehman Brothers and Credit Suisse First Boston, decided to cease all treatment five months ago for his glioblastoma, a type of brain cancer, his first impulse was not to mourn what he couldn’t do anymore or to buy an island or to move to Paris. Instead, he hunkered down in his tiny home office here and channeled whatever remaining energy he could muster into a slim paperback. It’s called “The Investment Answer,” and he wrote it with his friend and financial adviser Daniel Goldie to explain investing in a handful of simple steps. Why a book? And why this subject? Nine years ago, after retiring from 25 years of pushing bonds on pension and mutual fund managers trying to beat the market averages over long periods of time, Mr. Murray had an epiphany about the futility of his former customers’ pursuits. He eventually went to work as a consultant for Dimensional Fund Advisors, a mutual fund company that rails against active money management. So when his death sentence arrived, Mr. Murray knew he had to work quickly and resolved to get the word out to as many everyday investors as he could.

Read the rest of that NYT piece here. The Associated Press had this to say about the book and author: A self-published best-seller co-authored by a terminally ill financial executive has a book deal. "The Investment Answer," written by former Lehman Brothers managing director Gordon Murray and financial adviser Dan Goldie, has been acquired by Business Plus, an imprint of Grand Central Publishing. The publisher said Thursday it will have a new edition out by Jan. 25. The "Investment Answer" became an instant hit after an article appeared last week in The New York Times. Murray has been diagnosed with brain cancer. Financial terms were not disclosed, but two publishing executives with knowledge of negotiations said bidding had reached at least $1 million. Find that syndicated AP piece here. The book and author were also featured on NPR's All Things Considered:

"In fact, I tell my kids now, 'If you start to feel sorry for yourself, do something for someone else.' If this had happened to me 10 or 20 years ago, I would have been wallowing in self-pity and 'life is unfair,'" he says. "I was 58 when I was diagnosed. But the thing is, I had a chance to get some perspective, the chance to give something back. And that I've lived this long, and experienced so much closure, planning, love and friends and family. Boy, everybody should be so lucky as to have a phase like this. "The fact is, we're all going to die. I'm going to beat you across the finish line, most likely. But in the whole scheme of things, it's not by that much. And when you realize you're not your body, it doesn't really matter that much whether you live short or long."

Find that feature story at NPR.org. Download the podcast to that show here.