The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable

Hotel Resource Book Store 

 Store Home / Books / The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable

Hotel Industry Books 

The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable
by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
from Random House

Customer Reviews:

• Avg. Customer Rating: 3.5 / 5.0

• What happens to the Turkey on the 1001st day?
  I can't comment on the science behind this book. I will say that - at least from this layman's perspective - Taleb offers magnitudes of insight on the ideas of unpredictability and randomness, and does a bang-up job of upsetting the status quo.
  The book is centered on the concept of a Black Swan - an event that lies outside the narrow periphery of our knowledge, has an extreme impact or causes a major upset (whether it be cultural, financial, political, et al.), and is characterized by a rampant slew... more info

• A world few people live in.
  Wealth Odyssey: The Essential Road Map For Your Financial Journey Where Is It You Are Really Trying To Go With Money?
  This work says more about the world of hedge funds and speculation than it does about the world most people live in. "Everything is possible, yet only one thing happens" is a quote from "Chances are ... Adventures in Probability" by Michael and Ellen Kaplan, a much easier to read work without laborious philosophy wrapped around otherwise good information. Yes, things happen. "Pop! Why... more info

• Nebulous with the odd bright spot
  Any book that attempts to explain a nebulous concept such as this is hard to write but the presentation of this book is very cumbersome.
  The only parts I liked was Chapters 1-3 which has some interesting observations about rare events and how most humans are hardwired to miss the rare event and Chapters 15-17 are quite good: I think most readers will relish the discussion on bell curves and standard deviations.
  Chapters 5-15 are completely unreadable in which the author "discusses" the works and... more info

• The Abnormality of Normal Distributions
  Nassim Taleb's Black Swan makes for a fascinating read, despite (or perhaps because of) his heavily self-important style of writing. Taleb strikes at the core of the human tendency to prophesize, or more humbly, forecast all kinds of things. The reason why almost everyone gets it so wrong all the time, even while making predictions about seemingly mundane things (e.g., a project plan for building construction), is that they ignore the impact of "black swans", seemingly rare events. Taleb's contention is... more info

Similar Products:

Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets by Nassim Nicholas Taleb (Paperback) - Usually ships in 24 hours

A Demon of Our Own Design: Markets, Hedge Funds, and the Perils of Financial... by Richard Bookstaber (Hardcover) - Usually ships in 24 hours

The Halo Effect: ... and the Eight Other Business Delusions That Deceive... by Phil Rosenzweig (Hardcover)

Capital Ideas Evolving by Peter L. Bernstein (Hardcover) - Usually ships in 24 hours

Super Crunchers: Why Thinking-by-Numbers Is the New Way to Be Smart by Ian Ayres (Hardcover) - Usually ships in 24 hours