Anti Book Review: The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable

After reading fooled by randomness, I was very keen to read Taleb’s follow up The Black Swan. I really had high expectations of The Black Swan it was one of the best selling non-fiction book on Amazon.com for 2007. After reading The Black Swan it is very evident that no words I can write in this review will do the book justice. It is once again very thought provoking and confronting materiel that Taleb presents. This really is a must read book not just for pseudo financial professionals.

Contents

Prologue

Part One – Umberto Eco’s Antilibrary, or how we seek validation

  • Chapter One: The Apprenticeship of an Empirical Skeptic
  • Chapter Two: Yevgenia’s Black Swan
  • Chapter Three: The Speculator and the Prostitute
  • Chapter Four: One Thousand and One Days, or How Not to Be a Sucker
  • Chapter Five: Confirmation Shmonfirmation!
  • Chapter Six: The Narrative Fallacy
  • Chapter Seven: Living in the Antechamber of Hope
  • Chapter Eight: Giacomo Casanova’s Unfailing Luck: The Problem of Silent Evidence
  • Chapter Nine: The Ludic Fallacy, or The Uncertainty of the Nerd

Part Two: We Just Can’t Predict

  • Chapter Ten: The Scandal of Prediction
  • Chapter Eleven: How to Look for Bird Poop
  • Chapter Twelve: Epistemocracy, a Dream
  • Chapter Thirteen: Appelles the Painter, or What Do You Do if You Cannot Predict?

Part Three: Those Gray Swans Extremistan

  • Chapter Fourteen: From Mediocristan to Extremistan, and Back
  • Chapter Fifteen: The Bell Curve, That Great Intellectual Fraud
  • Chapter Sixteen: The Aesthetics of Randomness
  • Chapter Seventeen: Locke’s Madmen, or Bell Curves in the Wrong Places
  • Chapter Eighteen: The Uncertainty of The Phony
  • Chapter Nineteen: Half and Half, or How to Get Even with the Black Swan
  • Epilogue: Yevgenia’s White Swan
  • Acknowledgements
  • Glossary
  • Notes
  • Bibliography
  • Index

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Book Review: The Four Hour Work Week

How would you like to work only four hours a week whilst maintaining or even increasing your income? I have to say I would and that is what lead me to purchasing this book. I had heard about this book but wasn’t convinced. So when I saw the book on special at my local supermarket I thought I would give it a read.

The book is written by Timothy Ferriss and he certainly practices what he preaches. He is another individual that is impossible to label. According to his biography he has been a cage fighter in Japan, holds a Guinness world record in tango, national Chinese kickboxing champion and actor in a TV series in China to name but a few of his achievements. Did I mention he is only 29 years old? You can see some of his media appearances and interviews on his website The Four Hour Work Week. The book is around 300 pages in length and is a straightforward read. From a trading perspective chapter six The Low-Information diet: Cultivating Selective Ignorance is a must read.

Contents of the Book

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Book Review: Fooled by Randomness

Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets

casino.jpgNo doubt you have heard about or probably even read Nassim Taleb’s Fooled by Randomness. It definitely is a classic and a must read for any trader. Taleb is an experienced derivatives trader, holds a MBA from Wharton and a PhD from the University Paris-Dauphine and is the founder of Empirica Capital LLC. Given the authors extensive technical knowledge it refreshing to read a book that is accessible to readers of any level.
The book is separated into three key parts and the contents are outlined below:

Preface and Acknowledgments
Chapter summaries
Prolouge
Mosques in the Clouds

Part One: Solon’s Warning – Skewness, Asymmetry, Induction

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