Book notes

on 2024-09-21

Books I'm currently reading

  • War and Peace (in the original, as a fantastic audiobook from Ардис, via Audible UK - they've suddenly got the entire catalogue!)
  • The Years of Lyndon Johnson: Master of the Senate, Robert Caro
  • I Am a Strange Loop, Douglas Hofstadter

Books I've read recently

On the Edge - Nate Silver

Excellent for the poker and sports betting sections, and for the reflections on predicting US polls, but less interesting on AI and coming to any useful conclusions beyond that the future isn't quite like the past (on which subject, David Deutsch is much more articulate and well reasoned).

The Black Swan, Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Finally! A very good read. I avoided it for many years on misguided and impressionistic grounds, but someone whose taste I trust (and who recommended me David Graeber's Debt: The First 5000 years, another excellent book) recommended it to me, and now struggle to work out why I didn't read it sooner. Perhaps it's my anti-hype bias - clearly, some hyped things truly are worth their hype. The audiobook is narrated very well, in keeping with what I perceive to be NNT's personality and vibe, and I think I would have enjoyed it less in written form.

Antifragile, Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Also finally. Having read Black Swan, I heard Vinod Khosla recommend this during an interview as being even better, which I take to be a pretty powerful recommendation. This book has been strongly confirmatory of many of my own observerations.

Other books I've read recently

  • Poor Charlie's Almanack, Charlie Munger
  • The Years of Lyndon Johnson: The Path to Power, Robert Caro
  • The Years of Lyndon Johnson: Means of Ascent, Robert Caro
  • The Demon Haunted World, Carl Sagan
  • Friendly Orange Glow, Brian Dear
  • Rinsed, Geoff White
  • Cicero: The Life And Times of Rome's Greatest Politician, Anthony Everett
  • Into the Black, Rowland White
  • How Big Things Get Done, Bent Flyvbjerg and Dan Gardner
  • The Beginning of Infinity, David Deutsch (a completely masterful book, one of my favourite in recent years)