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 enlarge | Author: Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Publisher: Random House
Category: Book
List Price: $27.00
Buy New: $15.64
You Save: $11.36 (42%)
New (54) Used (24) Collectible (5) from $15.56
Rating:  379 reviews
Sales Rank: 76
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 400
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.5
Dimensions (in): 9.4 x 6.5 x 1.4
ISBN: 1400063515
Dewey Decimal Number: 003.54
EAN: 9781400063512
ASIN: 1400063515
Publication Date: April 17, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 Black Swan (Daffy Duck) December 1, 2008
6 out of 11 found this review helpful
I'll save you the trouble and the money. Here's the message (if that's what you'd call it): Crazy things happen...be prepared...if you can. There, aren't you happy you didn't waste any piece of your life reading this book, like I did?
 How Lucky Do You Feel? November 30, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
Taleb's explanation/rationalization of risk and how it has failed to be fully accounted for in the financial markets is startling. Going forward, as the current financial markets meltdown is (hopefully) resolved, all investors will want to consider Taleb's thoughts in developing strategies that will account for the the inevitable and unforeseeable outliers, Taleb's Black Swans, that are few but impossible to avoid. Failure to plan for the outliers reduces investment and money management to high stakes roulette.
There are certainly many fine points in the book to argue and Taleb lacks neither ego, humor or irony in his writing. This is not a technical manual for economists, but a narrative intended for the layman to illustrate the effects of risk, seen and unforeseen.
The importance of the book is the big picture concepts that are developed and their impact, which are conveyed meaningfully and often colorfully. Nit picking the finer points is rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
This is a great volume to help understand where all our money went and how to minimize the possibility of a replay.
Don't start here... but don't finish till you're done. November 28, 2008
3 out of 6 found this review helpful
Start with Fooled by Randomness (Taleb's first book), The Logic of Life - similar idea (less business oriented not as technical) and Against the The Gods. Then take on The Black Swan. An amazing book (Thank you Taleb for allowing us to leverage for $25 all the hours and brain energy you put into making these concepts cohesive - high ROI). This publication offers facinating insight into how much of what we don't know about what we don't know can/may/will affect us and helps hedge against the unknown - all the while respecting that there will always be an element of the unknown that simply can not be predicted. And the impact of the highly improbable lurks. Irreverant and written with humor it's surprisingly readable for its heady content. You will be changed.
The only thing I didn't care for was the title of the book. I get its application, but I think there could have been a more applicable name - but who the hell am I to say?
After you're done with The Black Swan, if you're musically inclined, go grab This is Your Brain on Music - these authors must meet. Different industries - interesting applications to ideas from both.
Just keep reading! Literacy = Knowledge = Empowerment = Peace
 There were some problems with this book November 27, 2008
2 out of 5 found this review helpful
1. The prose was EXTREMELY BLOATED. He took 5 sentences where two would have done just fine. One gets a sense of deja vu here. Ayn Rand is also someone who took at least 3x as much space as she needed to say anything. It is amazing that after all that space, she still didn't have that much to say. Even after all this, it appears that Taleb didn't have that much to say. I guess that you can't use book sales to predict how good/ useful a book will be. (But I guess we already knew that. Look at Danielle Steele.)
2. In continuing with the point about how long winded this book is: Was it really necessary to go on for *34* (!) pages before introducing the thesis of the book?
3. He could have taken some lessons from Malcolm Gladwell in how to pull the book together. (As in, how to take some observations that may not have been too interesting by themselves and connect them in some interesting way that makes a good book.)
4. The book, by rights, was about a 175-200 page book. (Did I mention how annoying it is to have to search through a book for the points?)
5. The best way would have been for this book to start off with a couple of examples that needed explaining and then develop the ideas from that. So, in a nutshell, the author wanted us to know about how some randomness is non Gaussian and therefore describing something as having a "fat right tail" (a common term to describe Gaussian distributions) is really a misnomer-- and that the randomness is actually Mandelbrotian. OK. All well and good. Did he really have to go through something like 250 pages before getting to the centerpiece?
Good points:
1. The author really does have some interesting material. The only problem is that the reader has to search through SO MUCH rubbish to be able to find it.
2. There are a few witty quips here. Not many, but a few that had me laughing out loud.
Overall, this is definitely not worth more than a secondhand purchase. And if you are someone that is very judicious in using your time (=not searching through a book for the point), then this is not the book for you.
Connecting fundamental truths to today's hard realities ... November 24, 2008
2 out of 5 found this review helpful
Excellent book. Nassim Taleb has questioned at length the (empirical and philosophical) foundations of our public thinking. To illustrate: Imagine an aspiring politician who predicts that her policies will create one million jobs, or the incumbent politician who reads his tea leaves and announces that his policies have created two million new jobs. You, like me, have probably wondered: "In such a big and complicated world, how do they know the impact of their actions with such singular clarity and absolute certainty?" Taleb describes in detail why their (and our) confidence is not justified.
You could easily rename this book "how not to be taken for an intellectual chump by society's big thinkers". While avoiding that fate you come to appreciate Benoit Mandelbrot, Karl Raimond Popper, and Fredrieck Hayak' and you are provided reasons to be skeptical of Carl Freidrick Gauss (and the bell curve). Taleb connects these esoteric dudes to the hard realities we face today. This book is ultimately an essay about mathematical empiricism, philosophy, reason, risk, uncertainty, and real life. But what makes it a great read is that Taleb actually takes the time to "dis" entire professions (if not individual professionals and intellectuals) on the grounds of intellectual merit. His attitude makes it more fun.
Read this book (twice) if you want to more deeply consider the big (uncertain) challenges facing the world.
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