The Bed of Procrustes. Ever heard of it? It's a Greek myth wherein Procrustes "fits" residents of his inn to his beds. It's a sort of metaphor for humans fitting worldly realities into neat little mental boxes, regardless of whether this actually makes sense or not. Besides being a myth, its also the title of a book by Nassim Taleb. He deliberately omits the point of the book for a quite apt reason: he doesn't want the reader's view clouded by some initial notion. The book is not fiction or non-fiction, an epic, full of cantos or epochs. It's a collection of pithy sayings originated in Taleb's mind. To the generous and open-minded, its a wonderful gathering of wisdom and insights from a very educated man. To the cynical its an ego trip by someone who has decided long ago that the only reason to bestow his intelligence on the mere peons surrounding him was to make them buy his book. You'd have to be pretty obtuse to claim that Taleb is not a brilliant mind. You'd have to be living under a rock not to hear him trumpet his own horn. Even for the cynics who would delight in Taleb's fund becoming the victim of a black swan in an ironic twist of fates, The Bed of Procrustes delivers. My favorite quote: The characteristic feature of the loser is to bemoan, in general terms, mankind’s flaws, biases, contradictions, and irrationality—without exploiting them for fun and profit.
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
On Greek Myths and General Airs of Superiority
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Reading List
I won’t make my goal of 100 books read this year, due mostly to my studying for the CFA. Here’s my current list of books to read.
Fooled By Randomness-Nassim Taleb
Traffic, Why We Drive The Way We Do-Tom Vanderbilt
The Long Tail, The Revolution Changing Small Markets Into Big Business-Chris Anderson
Sway, The Irresistible Pull Of Irrational Behavior-Ori and Rom Brafman
The Drunkard’s Walk, How Randomness Rules Our Lives-Leonard Mlodinow
Free Agent Nation-Daniel Pink
Who Moved My Cheese-Spencer Johnson
The Music Of Chance-Paul Auster
Animal Spirits, How Human Psychology Drives The Economy, and Why It Matters For Global Capitalism-George Akerlof
Descartes’ Error, Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain-Antonio Damasio
Rigged-Ben Mezrich
Zeitoun-Dave Eggers
Nudge, Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness-Richard Thaler
Understanding Wall Street-Jeffrey Little and Lucien Rhodes
The Intelligent Investor-Benjamin Graham
Unconventional Success, A Fundamental Approach to Personal Investment-David Swensen
The Little Book That Beats The Market-Joel Greenblatt
How To Win The Loser’s Game-Charles Ellis
