Nassim Nicholas Taleb
***1/2
291 pages
Coming from a Lebanese immigrant background, Taleb learned early on to distrust the "normal" and be on the look-out for the "black swan", the event that can come by out of the blue to blow you and yours out of the water. He also likes money and free time, so he ended up as an investment banker who learned to balance his bets to yield a good return while at the same time protecting him and his invetors from black swans, which are actually creatures of randomness. So this book helps explain how we are fooled by randomness. (Essentially, we are wired in such a way to take risks according to Taleb.) It was a good read in spite of the hectoring tone. I think he had a particular audience in mind who think they know -- when they don't really.
