10/27/97 BIG SPENDER

BIG SPENDER

MY VAST FORTUNE
The Money Adventures of a Quixotic Capitalist
By Andrew Tobias
Random House 207pp $23

The universe of personal-finance writers is ever-expanding, but Andrew Tobias was a pioneer of the genre. After writing a terrific biography of Revlon Inc. founder Charles Revson, Fire and Ice, Tobias burst onto the personal finance scene in 1978 with The Only Investment Guide You'll Ever Need. Readers loved his knack for light-heartedly clarifying fuzzy financial topics. And proceeds from the hot-selling title and other projects allowed Tobias to pursue a range of schemes and investments--from backing a failed reform of California's auto-insurance laws to plunges into Miami Beach real estate and Russian venture capital.
In his latest book, My Vast Fortune, Tobias sets out to describe all this and more. He leads us through the 45 years of his relationship with money, starting with his fifth birthday, when his dad gave him five bucks, until now, when a key preoccupation is figuring out how to give some away wisely. Sadly for his favorite charities (several of which, including Zero Population Growth, he promotes in the book), readers this time around are unlikely to find much of value.
The trouble begins with the danger that his topic--how I earned riches and how I spend them--will turn readers against even the best writer. Tobias has become quite windy: ''Nonetheless, as one who recurrently dreams of finding loose change in the street (well, in the gutter, if you must know, although I can't imagine there being any significance to that)....'' And obnoxious: ''I don't want to drop names, but for years I shared an elevator with Mary Tyler Moore,'' he says in a tiresome section devoted to buying a Manhattan co-op. You swiftly notice he's like that overly prosperous cousin of yours whose good intentions can't make up for utter boorishness. I mean, who cares that Tobias once had trouble getting service at his local Citibank branch?
Nor does it help that with Tobias, facts sometimes seem to get in the way of a snappy story. In recounting some of his good deeds at age 25, such as contributing to Common Cause and ''$16 or $18 a month to a foster child someplace,'' he adds that he also subscribed to Mother Jones--three or four years before the leftist magazine first appeared. A nit? Perhaps, but Tobias' breezy tone compels you to wonder just what else is true. For instance, he tells of having worked with a techie who ''was so geeky and weird it was clear he would simply never make it in civilized society.... Then I noticed in Fortune the other day that he is no longer seventeen, he's in his mid-thirties and worth a hundred million dollars.'' Tobias doesn't bother to clue us in on who this guy is.
You might look the other way if his advice on money matters were fresh or startling. But much of it is platitudinous: ''You have to be frugal (never cheap),'' he writes. ''You mustn't fear to negotiate (tastefully).''
The bulk of My Vast Fortune is made up of yarns, such as the one about battling Ralph Nader over auto insurance, that have appeared in Worth magazine, where Tobias is a contributor. So, here's the only guidance you'll ever need about this book: Save $23, and point your Web browser to www.worth.com. There, you can click through big chunks of it gratis.
By ROBERT BARKER