Nassim Nicholas Taleb: The Black Swan : The Impact of the Highly Improbable

The Black Swan is an event that is impossible to predict, very unlikely to happen and causes a major impact. They can be disastrous or very beneficial, depending on their nature. In his book, Taleb discusses these swans and how to either avoid trouble or reap the benefits, for example in investing.

Most of the time, though, it seems he's on a mission against economists (and the people who hand out the Nobel prize in economics). While Taleb's ideas are interesting and enlightening - he certainly challenges people to think in a new way, which is always good - the writing is rambling and uneven.

I believe the Finnish translation I read was not quite as good as it should be and I wish I had read the book in English, but still - it's not as good a read as the best popular science books are. Still, The Black Swan is interesting enough to be worth reading, just skim the boring bits. (Review based on Finnish translation.) [ The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable at Amazon.co.uk ] [ The Black Swan at LibraryThing ]