Tom Barrack is one of the biggest real-estate deal-makers in the world. His investment firm, Colony Capital LLC, has raised $16 billion from pension plans and other big investors to buy properties like gaming company Station Casinos Inc., Michael Jackson’s Neverland Ranch, and possibly even Walt Disney Co.’s Miramax movie studio.

But recently, it turns out, Barrack has also been doing some soul-searching—thanks to Stephenie Meyer’s popular vampire-novel series, “Twilight.”

In a July 2 memo encouraging his employees to consider outside points of view Barrack describes a lonely evening on a yacht in Turkey after a canceled business meeting. In the yacht, Mr. Barrack writes, he came upon a book on which “were written the words that strike terror in the hearts of every macho, red-blooded male…TWILIGHT.” He goes on:

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