Oct

6

Moneyball, by Michael Lewis, is about the Oakland A's statistical approach to management . Though this author is not to everyone's linking around these parts, I found the book to have many good ideas and new approaches to data and the underlying statistics. It is an entertaining read, though I just read in the newspapers that the Oakland A's just had the longest losing streak in history so here is another example of randomness overcoming the data history or a changing cycle where all the other teams started using the same methods. There are many market ideas here.

Microtrends: The Small Forces Behind Tomorrow's Big Changes, by Mark Penn, is a book like Megatrends of a few decades ago about statistics from census and surveys about social and political trends. For example, there are more single women than men, 57-43, due to the gay male population.

The Heart of the World, by Ian Baker, is the documentary of a spiritual and arduous physical journey to the Tsangpo Gorge, Tibet, the deepest gorge in the world, and unmapped until recently. Wonderful book for those familiar and interested in Tibetan religion.

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR): Basic Principles, Protocols, and Procedures, 2nd Edition, by Francine Shapiro is an interesting psychological/physical approach to treating PTSD. It's aimed at the professional psychologist, but accessible to the lay reader.

A Colossal Failure of Common Sense: The Inside Story of the Collapse of Lehman Brothers, by Larry McDonald and Patrick Robinson, is a fast read by a bond trader at Lehman about the collapse and apparent errors by the leadership.

The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon, by David Grann, is a fun read about the search in the Amazon for Eldorado, the lost city of gold, and the many who became lost in the jungles and their travails.


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  1. Craig Bowles on October 7, 2009 8:27 am

    The A’s maybe got away from the Moneyball strategy a bit. He never used to keep an Eric Chavez at $11,500,000 and used to upset people by trading people away.

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