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| The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable | 
 enlarge | Author: Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Publisher: Random House
Category: Book
List Price: $27.00
Buy New: $15.49
You Save: $11.51 (43%)
Buy New/Used/Collectible from $10.89
Avg. Customer Rating:  (361 reviews)
Sales Rank: 138
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
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
Release Date: April 17, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 Dry, dull, self-indulgent book ... waste of time and money. November 16, 2008
5 out of 7 found this review helpful
Black Swan is without doubt the most disappointing book I have ever read in my life.
That I actually feel compelled to submit a review (for the first time in a decade) is testimony in itself. I hope that it will help somebody else avoid the utter waste of time and money that this book represents..
The key problems with this book are:
1. The complete lack of structure and flow. Imagine listening to somebody who digresses ad infinitum. At each turn in their storyline, at each anecdote, you're wondering "ok, where is this going? how is *this* related to the overall message you're trying to communicate?". But no, they continue with the next little incomplete anecdote ad nauseum.
2. The intrusion of the author's personality into the book itself. And from what I've gathered, the author is a self-obsessed bore. All the references to himself, the people he's met (often with no explanation of the pertinence to the storyline), name-checking obscure philosophers & economist ('obscure' to the layman anyway) for seemingly no reason other than to appear intellectual. The author spends so long pointing out others' mistakes and showing how others are so stupid and he's so smart, and it's simply not nice to listen to people like that.
3. Poor writing style. As mentioned already, this really needed an editor.
I laboured with it for hours but eventually had to put it down when 60% of the way through.
I persevered that long because I thought there must be some pay-back further along the line; but no ... no amusing or insightful stories/anecdotes to make the medicine easier to swallow - this is simply a long, dry, dull read.
If you are looking for an enjoyable and insightful read along the lines of Tipping Point, Blink, Freakonomics, Outliers etc then this is definitely NOT it.
This book is a Black Swan. It certainly doesn't owe its success to the content.
(I actually bought it on a whim based on its position in the bestseller list and Chris Anderson describing it as "mindblowing... a masterpiece" - shame on you, Chris).
Actually, it's not a Black Swan... it was just well marketed. Shame about the product.
 Interesting concepts/theories - way too long November 16, 2008
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
Do not use your valuable time reading through this entire book. Taleb provides some solid theories with good support. However, this book could have been condensed into about 50 pages and he could have conveyed his entire message. Much of the book is stream of consciousness and it is difficult to see how what he is currently discussing ties to what he just discussed, and where the discussion will go next. Additionally, many of his theories, while applicable in the constrained set of circumstances he presents, are not widely applicable.
Presentation of the Black Swan was a useful backdrop for other discussion in the book, but the Black Swan was really not what the majority of the book was about. Instead, it branched off into other theories, not directly supporting the Black Swan theory, and in many cases, unrelated to other parts of the book.
While Taleb (clearly qualified in this area of empiricist discussion), at times, wrote in engaging prose, too many times he engaged in name-dropping and abstract theoretical presentation that distracted the reader (without an extensive knowledge of mathematical theorists). It was difficult to determine an appropriate audience for this book. Sometimes it seemed anecdotal, targeting the lay mathematician, while at other times it dove so deep as to only interest a Ph.D. in related topics.
Overall, it was a struggle to get through this book and while there was some scattered, solid discussion, I was able to take very little away that will be applicable. Not an enjoyable or informative read.
 Beautiful! November 10, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
One of those books that can change the way you see the world and (as usual for such books) it does so with humor, clear unpretentious language and examples. As another reviewer already said, the point of the book could have been stated in a couple of lines, but then we'd miss the great writing and more importantly, the internalization of what Taleb is talking about.
Some of my favorite parts:
* Turkey Problem (Induction): For 999 days, the turkey is loved and cared for by human beings. Why should it worry or have any doubts. But then on the 1000th day there's a surprise awaiting it. The title illustrates this point too. It only takes one contradiction, one knife, one black swan to prove wrong an infinity of verifications.
* Extremistan vs. Mundanistan: In a stadium full of people, one person, even the tallest in the world, won't offset the average height by very much. Same with age, or with weight, or caloric intake. These qualities are of Mundanistan. However, with things like money (ie. Bill Gates enters the stadium) one person can outweigh the entire group. Things like net worth are from Extremistan. Our prediction models are based on Mundanistan, however many of the things that can impact us most are from Extremistan (ie. impact of disease, medicine, wars, weather) and hence our prediction models don't work.
* Ludic Fallacy (seeing the map as the terrain) via Brooklyn Tony and the actuary. This is my favorite part of the book!
Thought experiment at a bar (this isn't an exact quote, sounded much better in the book):
Taleb: I tossed a fair coin 99 times and got heads each time. What are my odds of heads on the next toss?
Dr. John (the actuary): 50/50.
Tony: At least 99 to 1.
John: But why? The previous tosses have nothing to do with the next one.
Tony: You're either full of crap or a pure sucker to buy that fifty percent business. The coin's gotta be loaded.
I love it!
 A delicious surprise that has changed my approach to risk November 9, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
The good news: insightful, deep, fresh and funny
The bad news: the main message could have been summed up in a few pages- but we would have missed the joy of reading his elegant prose!
Intelligent Life November 1, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
Do you ever wonder if those people we call "intellectuals" actually exist? Have you ever stayed up late at night thinking about how everybody just seems to pull stuff out of their *ss? Maybe not. But if you have, Nassim Nicholas Taleb will give you a clear answer. These intellectual philosophy types do exist, you've just been looking in all the wrong places.
But The Black Swan is not about the existence of smart people. It is about our view of highly improbable events. Taleb discusses in depth the ineffective risk prediction models that are ingrained in our society. The scope of the book, however, is much wider than this. Taleb manages to pull in observations, studies, and biographies from our past to convey a simple and strong idea.
Imagine an assignment where you are asked to write one paragraph. The subject of your writing can include anything. You are allowed to edit the content and grammar of the paragraph once a week for ten years to make it as understandable and correct as possible. Taleb is so fluent and solid on each page you would think he used this technique throughout the book.
The Black Swan will cause you to think about everything around you from his perspective. If you are not comfortable judging people for being totally unaware of the world, do not read this book. A nice excerpt is Taleb's ranking of intelligent animals (paraphrased): Humans, Wall Street Bankers, Dolphins, Apes...and so on.
www.andironblog.com
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