Anyone read any good books?

[Crazyskier]

If you would like some recommendations for some reading material other than pertaining to wagering / trading etc, then I strongly recommend the following authors:

John RR Tolkien (The Hobbit & LOTR)
George RR Martin (A Tale of Fire and Ice)
Raymond E Feist (The Magician, Silverthorn and Sethanon Trilogy)

These reads are escapism of the highest order; I find myself returning every couple of years and long for Martin's much-delayed 'Winds of Winter' which will be Game of Thrones S6.

I recommend buying good quality used paperbacks from Amazon where they are just 1p each plus £1.80 P&P.

Enjoy!

[marksmeets302]

An entertaining read: Not my grandfathers wall street by David von Leib. Not just about financial markets, there are (hilarious) chapters about horse racing, black jack and backgammon as well.

[PeterLe]

I recently read the new Matthew Syed book - Black Box Thinking..and captured my thoughts below...sorry its a bit long winded

I saved reading this book until a well earned holiday and having read bounce I was looking forward to it. I read this a month or so ago now, so Ill have to refresh my memory!
If you look at the average customer review on Amazon, you’ll see that the book is highly rated. Im going to buck the trend here as I didn't rate it that highly.
Syed talks about Closed loop systems and Open loop systems. Anyone from an electronics back ground will tell you that Closed sloop Systems take an input from part of a system and feed it back to the input. Nothing new there. (in fact most traders do that especially where they are using automated systems and arguably the good manual traders do the same, some better than others I hasten to add!).
The term or title “Black Box Thinking” is derived from the aviations use of the Black Box System where as Syed puts it “ Failure is data rich”, when something goes wrong in flight and a disaster occurs, the resultant data is painstakingly pulled apart and analysed. Lessons are truly learned.
Compare and contrast that with a industry such as healthcare where unlike the aviation industry of complete openness and non judgemental approach, a blame culture exists (perhaps fuelled by the way these institutions are prone to law suits etc)....or so Syed suggests...
This theme ran through the whole book and the author seemed to labour the point (almost to the point where I was thinking in my mind “ He’s not going to go back over that again is he?)…Not only that, I was disagreeing with him.
I dont work in the medical industry (maybe someone reading this does?) but I though he was doing an injustice somewhat. I think medical systems have come on leaps and bounds this last ten years and had I been a surgeon, I wouldn't have taken kindly to his analogies and comparisons.
I cant remember the book I read some time time ago (think it was by Kahneman), where the author explains the techniques employed in A&E these days in spotting various conditions. This was almost a contradiction in terms with the aforementioned book.

I remember looking at the % counter on my Kindle and thinking Ive read 30% of the book now and dont feel like Ive learned much. I dont mean that to sound like a know it all, but I genuinely felt that.
At 50% it started to get interesting. He touched on the phenomenal success of the Sky Cycling team and why they are dominating the podiums in recent times. His analysis spanned about half a dozen pages and I was left wanting to learn more.
He def missed a trick here. If you are going to find a technique of Black Box thinking in action today, then surely it could be found here and elaborated on! (The Sky team by the way, sough to employ a system where the goal wasn't to find areas in which big leaps forward could be capitalised on, rather the goal is to strip everything down to the nuts and bolts of the full end to end process and see lots of small areas when small gains could be realised in each component part.
Lots of small gains add up to big gains. I dont know much about this, but I intend reading up more on this in the future. It gets you in the mood for seeking ways of being a better trader
All in All, I felt a bit disappointed, especially as I enjoyed his other book - Bounce. Im not saying it was a waste of time, but I truly think it could have been better.

Regards
Peter

(By the way; I expect there maybe people on the forum thinking “ I couldn't be bothered reading that, what is there to gain?” Well Im 100% sure there are people trading using “Black Box thinking” on Betfair even some on this forum and whilst that’s the utopian dream (even if you had enough free time!), you need to working along this path to get up there with the better traders.
…and to finish on a real life example..having thought about team Sky I revisited a newish system Im working on (which seemed to be floundering a little of late) and broke it down into its component parts. To see if small gains could be made. The blue line represents the day a very subtle change was made and I can already see it is paying dividends. (I have this system running on three systems; one of them is the unchanged version, so I have a point of reference rather than it being down to luck.
Makes you think!

Following on from the above review; the book is mentioned on the BBC website this morning...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-35929557

[andyfuller]

Thanks for that PeterLe - reading the article it reads very much like The Checklist Manifesto: How To Get Things Right by Atul Gawande.

I have a few of his books now and they often appear in the Kindle monthly deals - he currently has one in there. 'The Checklist Manifesto: How To Get Things Right' is often available for 99p and is worth a read if you haven't already.

[PeterLe]

Thanks for that PeterLe - reading the article it reads very much like The Checklist Manifesto: How To Get Things Right by Atul Gawande.

I have a few of his books now and they often appear in the Kindle monthly deals - he currently has one in there. 'The Checklist Manifesto: How To Get Things Right' is often available for 99p and is worth a read if you haven't already.

Thanks Andy, one for the list!

[Crazyskier]

Compare and contrast that with a industry such as healthcare where unlike the aviation industry of complete openness and non judgemental approach, a blame culture exists (perhaps fuelled by the way these institutions are prone to law suits etc)....or so Syed suggests...
This theme ran through the whole book and the author seemed to labour the point (almost to the point where I was thinking in my mind “ He’s not going to go back over that again is he?)…Not only that, I was disagreeing with him.
I dont work in the medical industry (maybe someone reading this does?) but I though he was doing an injustice somewhat. I think medical systems have come on leaps and bounds this last ten years and had I been a surgeon, I wouldn't have taken kindly to his analogies and comparisons.
Regards
Peter

Hi Peter.

Whilst not a medical professional and nor have I read the 'Black Box Thinking' book by Matthew Syed, I have seen several of his lectures and talks on the BBC recently and have to say that I personally found myself agreeing absolutely with Matthew Syed.

The litigious culture that has permeated British society of late is costing us (the tax-payer) literally billions of pounds annually. Schools, Police, hospitals, even Councils for trips on paving stones etc are all now standard fare, largely due to the rise and rise of the 'no win no fee' ambulance-chasing scum that call themselves lawyers (something I do know a little about).

Sadly the 'where there's blame, there's a claim' compensation culture has made almost every medical professional - who like all humans, make errors - keep stum when questioned about such; generally on the advice of their union or legal advisers.

All too often, genuine oversights or mistakes within the NHS are viewed as grounds for spurious claims and the de-facto stance is now to deny everything, utterly UNLIKE the accident investigations with aircraft / black box data analysis etc...

In short, it's a sad sign of the litigious me, me, me times in which we live, but Matthew Syed is absolutely correct to highlight the gulf between open, honest information-sharing after air crashes, and the stonewall approach after any perceived NHS failings of any kind.

This is my view anyhow.

[convoysur-2]

PROGRAMMING FOR BETFAIR,
This looks very interesting has anyone read or tried this ?thanks
Marc
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1511 ... 5NG54VHQ2S

[Euler]

The author tried to spam it on here

If you are interested in coding then Colin Magee's book is pretty good as well.

[PeterLe]

Peter, I think Colin's book is for the old API (Although I found other little nuggets from his writings, such as how to go about building a strategy and testing etc. Things you can carry forward
Regards
Peter
PS, you know, I often wonder if these guys ever make any money themselves from betfair>?

[LinusP]

Its for the new one, API-NG.

[PeterLe]

Its for the new one, API-NG.

He published it in March 2001? Are you sure?

[LinusP]

Its for the new one, API-NG.

He published it in March 2001? Are you sure?

Thought you were referring to Programming For Betfair, ignore me

[Euler]

Thanks I didn't realise it was outdated.

I can't see there being a big market for these things. It's a niche of a niche of a niche of a niche.

[Euler]

As this thread is at the top again a must read for everybody is...

'Thinking fast and slow' - Daniel Kahneman

The audible book is good as well if you don't have time to read.

It's what I would call a transformative book. You will not be the same again once you have read it.

[PeterLe]

[quote
Hi Peter.

Whilst not a medical professional and nor have I read the 'Black Box Thinking' book by Matthew Syed

Hi C, I didnt see your reply..
I dont disagree with anything you've written but if you read the book you'll see what I mean. i was almost willing the pages to be turned faster..only to find the same ground being gone over time and time again.
the book has great reviews on Amazon; so maybe its just me!
Regards
Peter