Reflections on my book reflections

This year, I’ve read a total of 28 books (excluding those that I didn’t read from cover to cover). After reading so many, I realized that those selections which interest me are getting lesser and lesser. I used to go to any library and grab a book – chances are that it’ll be interesting enough to carry on reading till the end. But as more of such books had been read by me, I have to be a little more selective.

I recently stopped reading two of Ken Fisher’s books that I borrowed - the most recent one being his famous “Three questions that count”. After reading the first chapter, I already felt bored by his philosophy. The singularity point comes when I did one-third of the book and I decided to stop taking the nonsense I’m reading. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not a bad book seriously, I think it’s just not for me. Some deeper level of conflicts between his ideas and mine prevented me from finishing his books. In a way, Ken Fisher already ‘predicted’ that as he mentioned that even if people are to read his books and predictions, they won’t believe in enough to act on it. Oh well.

These days I go by author. I love Pat Dorsey and Nassim Taleb. I’ll gladly devour any books written by them. I was wowed by Nassim Taleb’s Fooled by Randomness – a salad mix of philosophical, logical, mathematical and statistical story telling. I learned from these authors that stories stay when big ideas are forgotten – a very useful thing to remember in my line of work. Never tell facts – tell stories that wove the facts.

I’m already salivating over his new book – The Black Swan – which is sitting right here on my desk.

Another ‘genre’ of books that I like are those very old books with their ancient fonts and archaic sentence structure. The authors are irritatingly polite and have this circular kind of reasoning, which is all-so-common in that era. However, reading such books still give me a rustic kind of charm, which I liked very much. Don’t be mislead by their ancient-ness, the advice espoused are very much applicable in today’s new era. I suppose there are a few truisms when investing and those that can stand the test of time and hold strong in the face of the vicissitudes and whims of Mr.Market truly deserve to be called ‘truism’.

Am I now a more learned person because of the books I’ve read? It’s hard to say. From a personality test that I took in the past, I’m a fact curator – someone who collects facts and recalls them well. This brings me to another important point. Does reading make one stupid because the thinking had been done for you? Am I getting stupider yet thinking I’m smarter because I’m so educated and read so many books? If the latter is true, it’ll be the most ironic thing – to be intellectually trapped by books. I guess the balance point lies in being open minded.

And I’ve just shown myself to be close-minded by rejecting Ken Fisher’s book :)