Book Worm

When you give yourself permission to steal from the great artists, it takes away the huge burden of the need to be original. And that relief itself, ironically, makes space for original ideas.

Investing, they say, is more of an art than science. And, art by definition, stands on the shoulders of creativity. Where there’s art, there’s creativity. So, any insights that can inject some creativity into one’s life and work, including investing, are worth paying attention.

Austin Kleon’s book – Steal Like An Artist– is an illustrated guide that gently touches the various aspects of how creativity takes shape. It’s a manifesto for writers, artists, entrepreneurs, designers, photographers, musicians, and anyone attempting to make things, especially in the digital age.

[Read more…] about BookWorm: Steal Like An Artist

We live in a world that we don’t fully understand. And with this incomplete knowledge, when we build complex things and hope that everything will work out the way we planned, it makes us more vulnerable to the impact of the improbable.

Someone once told me – Most books should have been blog posts and most articles should have been a 140-character tweet. Totally agree. I have read more than my fair share of such terrible books and bloated blogs. There are way too many mediocre and awful books out there. And when it comes to business books, most books aren’t even books – they are ego trips for the businessmen and a resume building gimmick for their ghost-writers.

But among every dozen business books that I have picked up, there have been few great ones two. They are truly worth their weight in gold. They changed my life. Even for Warren Buffett, the greatest investment wasn’t a stock or business but a book written by Benjamin Graham. As Buffett put it, “of all the investments I ever made…[it] was the best.”

[Read more…] about BookWorm: The Black Swan

If you trace the life of greatest thinkers you’d find a common thread among them. Almost all of them were great writers too. William Zinsser gives useful and blunt advice about writing better non-fiction.

What differentiates a mediocre investor from a good investor? Knowledge? Knowledge is necessary but not sufficient. The key is having the ability to apply the knowledge wisely. And that ability is a product of how one thinks. If you trace the life of greatest thinkers you’d find a common thread among them. Almost all of them were great writers too.

Writing isn’t merely a tool for expressing one’s thoughts. It’s also a tool to discover new thoughts, structure them, and refine them. All the great thinkers, inventors, scientists, philosophers, communicators I know have vouched that writing and thinking are connected to each other like Siamese twins. Isaac Asimov, the most prolific sci-fi writer of 20th century, wrote more than 400 books. He used to say, “Writing, to me, is simply thinking through my fingers.”

[Read more…] about BookWorm: On Writing Well

The world we live in today is more random than we would like to think. A human mind is a meaning-making machine. Through millions of years of evolution, nature has hardwired the human brain to seek patterns and consistencies everywhere. But as civilization has progressed the world around us has become increasingly random i.e., uncertain and unpredictable.

Nassim Taleb is one of those thinkers of modern times who is ardently loved by many intellectuals and criticized by probably more. In his talks and public interactions, Taleb comes out as someone who has a knack for rubbing off people the wrong way. His writing style has been labelled as excessively rhetoric and provocative.

Even Howard Marks, a very successful and highly respected value investor, said this about Fooled by Randomness－ the most important badly written book.

As for Nassim, whether you like him or hate him, one thing is for sure － his ideas can’t be ignored. Once you set aside those minor personality issues and get past the resistance created by Taleb’s unique writing style, his books are a treat to read and choc full of thought provoking arguments. In my library, this book is probably the most highlighted, underlined and annotated one.
[Read more…] about BookWorm: Fooled by Randomness

There are as many ways to make money in the markets as there are people participating in the markets, but there are relatively few ways to lose money in the markets. For a majority of the people, all the losses come from the same few source. Jim Paul’s cautionary tale is a testimony to the importance of studying the patterns of failure than the ways of success.

The backdrop of this book is the true story of a trader called Jim Paul. His career in stock market started with a string of unusual successes that vaulted him from a dirt-poor country boy to jet-setting-millionaire. However, after 15 years of uninterrupted success, all of Jim’s wealth was wiped out in a matter of few weeks when he lost $1.6 million in a speculative trade. This devastating failure led him to intense self-reflection and discovery of some unusual insights about success and failure.
[Read more…] about BookWorm: What I Learned Losing A Million Dollars