The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable by Nassim Nicholas Taleb Summary and Reviews
|
Category: Book See more book details and other editions |
|---|
(Click here)
Book Reviews of The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable
Book Review: Large Ego, facinating book, changes your perspective
Summary: 5 Stars
For anyone interested in logic and clearer thinking, this is a rivetting read. NNT points out the worryingly common flaws in our perceptions with clever anecdotes and examples, which you can immediatly recognise in your own life.
The pleasure of this book is in picking up a newspaper or talking to a collegue and questioning things that yesterday you would have gone along with. The only other book to give me such a change in perspective was Jamie whyte's guide to clear thinking, although he seems to talk about social situations, where as the focus her is more empirical.
As other reviewers of hinted at, Taleb does show an outsized Ego but it does not adversley affect the quality and message of the book.
Fantastic read, perspective changing, highly recommneded
Book Review: Too clever by 75.987456 per cent
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a very amusing provocation by perhaps the most subversive philosopher economist since C Northcote Parkinson. He makes a case that is hard to refute that chance and luck play a much bigger role than our narratives might suggest, and that consequent to this/subsequent to it there are always going to be anomolous events that are more or less completely unforseen, which are going to result in money blowing up, amongst other things. At a time of turbulance in global markets, this is an especially entertaining read that lays out a devastating case against conventional wisdom and above all the Bell Curve, while be laugh-out-load funny at the same time. It sets out to humble some undeserving recipients of the Nobel Prize for economics, although it can be argued that this is akin to shooting ducks in a cage.Book Review: Some Excellent Discussion - but dispersed, badly explained and poorly presented
Summary: 3 Stars
On initial reading of the description of this book- we are drawn into the type of discussion and the way of thinking you require to get the most out of this tale. If you can fight your way through the ego trip that presents itself as a first chapter, you can get to the core of the argument, the "Black Swan" affects our everyday life. Taleb shows through a variety of methods, when, where and how this comes about- although his argument disperses into irrelevant personal attacks and a misunderstanding of simple statistical concepts leaves him in hot water when it comes to being able to reinforce his argument with fact.
This book should be read, but it should be read with a critical eye. Try to get a basic understanding in the opening chapters as he annoyingly often refers to them, expecting you to know the book by number as he may do. The diagrams do little to rectify the situation but sometimes provide a break for the more educated to critise his arguments and agree with them in places. Certainly discussion provoking stuff.
Book Review: We don't know what we don't know
Summary: 4 Stars
I am really enjoying this book. It has challenged me enormously. And in many respects I don't feel intellectually worthy of disecting this book and perhaps there is no need to.
My summary of the book is as follows
1. You cannot predict the future from the past.
2. Your interpretation of the events is just a story. It is not what happened.
3. You don't know what you don't know and it is from the DKDK that the black swans come.
4. You cannot plan to eliminate risk you can only plan to be prepared. Chance favours the prepared.
These are grand and interesting ideas and I particularly enjoyed the characters of fat tony and Dr. John.
I am only giving the book 4 stars because I think that it could have been written with less of a pompous overtone and with a quiet sense of fun that I really enjoyed with books like Blink and Freakonomics. While NNT tries hard it still reads a little too much like a dry philosophy text.
Book Review: Pure genius
Summary: 5 Stars
Readable, thought-provoking, unconventional, brilliant, ironic and, on top of that, he must also be right.
Can you ask more from a book?