This book is sort of like Harry Potter. It follows a kid with problems in the "real world" who ends up in a school for the children of gods. Lots of young angst, some clever banter, a mission with friends to save the world. A clever and enjoyable read, for kids and kid-like grownups. ]]>
Great book, very fun to read. Follows a guy in the 1980s as he goes to work on Wall Street as a bond trader. It was written in 1989, but the applicability to the recent financial crash and background on securitization of mortgages is outstanding. Michael Lewis is a very good writer. ]]>
This book is more like Deception Point and Digital Fortress than Angels & Demons or The Da Vinci Code. I didn't like it, found the pacing and story tedious. ]]>
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I really like Koontz, but this book disappointed me. Took too long to get to the payoff. It was a good payoff, I really liked the last 50 or so pages, but the lead up was too involved and not interesting enough. ]]>
Fun action/spy story, following Israeli assassin Gabriel Allon as he kicks butt. Interestingly, it fits in with another book I read recently about the Islamification of Europe called "America Alone." ]]>
A wonderful book about the trials and triumph of a family, as told through the eyes of their dog. Heart warming, heart rending, lots of bad things happen to the man, but a true champion will overcome obstacles and find a way to win. By the way, he's a race car driver who is an expert at racing in wet weather, hence the title. ]]>
This book is about the huge demographic changes which will occur in Europe over the next 40 years and the geopolitic implications of it, and the mass migration from Asia and Africa into Europe. It’s also got a lot of fear mongering, anti-Islam, anti-liberal, anti-European rhetoric, presented in an enormously humorous way. Mark Steyn knows how to turn a phrase, and a liberal’s stomach.
Bottom line: White Europeans aren’t having babies, Arab/Muslim immigrants are, and America will lose its allies by 2040. You can get a lot of the meat and tone just by reading the introduction to the 2008 paperback edition, but read at least a couple more chapters. Steyn has wit. He says “it’s hard to deliver a wake-up call for a civilization so determined to smother the alarm clock in the soft, fluffy pillow of multiculturalism and sleep in for another ten years.” “Emerging Muslim lobby groups are the McDonald’s coffee plaintiff of ethno-cultural grievance-mongers.” “Multiculti pieties” “non-judgemental multiculturalism is an obvious fraud”, “even-handedness by Washington will be received as a form of one-handedness by the time its effects are felt in Wackistan or Basketkhazia - Isolation doesn’t travel”, shoot, just the chapter titles are clever.
Steyn is not a racist; he is massively anti-Islam. He seems to lump all Muslims into the category of radical Muslims. He refers to Islam as a virus, and I don’t like that one bit. But he raises some tough questions. What are the consequences of Europe accepting sharia law and polygamy? Will Europeans convert to Islam or pander to Islam to avoid terrorist attacks (look at the Spanish election after the train attack)? He says a Muslim bomb is likely to accelerate the Islamification of Europe, because “Islamification brings you under the Persian nuclear umbrella and encourages Tehran and its clients to turn their attentions elsewhere.” Will the West, which prides itself on its tolerance, allow forces of intolerance to cut it apart from the inside?
There are a lot of problems with this book. For one, it is highly repetitive, even if he is a sharp wit. I also have a problem with the lack of sourcing. I need a footnote or a bibliography, otherwise how do I separate fact from opinion? There aren’t any endnotes. He says Hussein Massawi, former leader of Hezbollah, said “we are not fighting so that you will offer us something, we a fighting to eliminate you.” But I did an internet search on Hezbollah leaders and didn’t find that name. He says a Catholic HS in California changed its name from the Crusaders to the less culturally insensitive Lions, but in Irvine the top Muslim Football League teams were the Intifada, the Mujahedeen, the Saracens, and the Sword of Allah. How do I know he’s not making that up?
What are we to do, after 200 pages of asking questions and raising problems? He starts to answer this question on page 204 of the paperback version of the book, and it’s probably worthwhile to start reading again here if you gave up on the early parts. But it’s not a real prescription for change. Early on in the book he says “I don’t pretend to have all the answers, but that’s better than pretending that there aren’t even any questions.” That’s true, and these questions are worth reading.
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I think I would have enjoyed this book more if I hadn’t read The Black Swan, but it still has too much of Taleb being arrogant. There is no reason to read both books. The big takeaway is that a lot of what we perceive as success is just the way random occurrences have played themselves out. If you start with a thousand people predicting a coin toss, after 10 tosses you’ll have one guy who called them all correctly. That’s not skill, it’s just luck. You have to look at alternative histories, look at the losers, not just the survivors. Taleb’s big weakness is that he attributes it all to luck, without addressing those who are actually skilled.
The best quote in the book: Any statement that can be tested should be tested. ]]>
Remo
read and liked
Philip's
review of Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets:
"I love the theses that he has in the book, but jesus christ, this is horribly written.
I think the powerful ideas could have been condensed down to a New Yorker length article:
1. We tend to see the "survivors"; by hiding ...more "
"I love the theses that he has in the book, but jesus christ, this is horribly written.
I think the powerful ideas could have been condensed down to a New Yorker length article:
1. We tend to see the "survivors"; by hiding ...more "