Three Fascinating Books I Read This Year

As the year comes to a close, I wanted to take a moment to thank you all for your continued support. I have received notes of thankfulness, encouragement, and feedback - I appreciate them all! If you have a friend or family member that you think might benefit from these posts, they can subscribe here or on the home page of this website.

Here are three books that I found particularly informative this year.  

Expert Political Judgement (Philip Tetlock) - In a world where the media showcases experts that claim to know the future, this book took a hard stance in revealing just how often those so-called experts are wrong. The media is biased toward only showing the most over-confident experts. As one former “expert” put it in the book, “…I fight to preserve my reputation in a cutthroat adversarial culture. I woo [reporters] who want glib sound bites.” Any expert who predicts little to no change will not have a spotlight. 

Devil Take the Hindmost (Edward Chancellor) – During a year in which there was historical speculation in fringe cryptocurrencies, meme stocks, and more, this was a great reminder of how some of these have ended in the past. The biggest takeaway – when you invest in things you know little about, you are prone to significantly overpaying. If you want to speculate, take the time to fully understand what you are investing in. For example, during the Canal Speculation in the 1700s, the early canal creators were landowners who knew the local geography well and could create profitable trade routes. However, as speculation piled in, non-locals poured investments to create canals for routes they didn’t know well. Many of these routes proved useless and went bankrupt.   

On Desperate Ground (Hampton Sides) - A fascinating read and one of the most engaging war stories I have ever read. It is about the US troops who walked into a trap during the Korean War, resulting in them being completely surrounded and out-numbered 10 to 1. With their backs against the wall, there are stories of heroism, resiliency, and some amazing strategic decisions that lead them out with minimal casualties.  

 My list of books from 2020 can be found here. 

Happy reading! 

 Thank you for reading, 

 Alex 

This blog post is not advice. Please read disclaimers.