Investing: The Last Liberal Art

Posted by: stak
Tags: book2019
Posted on: 2019-07-31 11:21:08

Book #19 of 2019 is Investing: The Last Liberal Art. I saw this randomly while browsing in a library and it sounded interesting so I picked it up. It was a bit of a rollercoaster, because:

(1) What I expected based on the jacket was that it would give a quick overview of the main ideas from different disciplines in a way that would encourage me to learn more about them.

(2) After reading the first chapter, I was very disappointed, because it seemed like it was really "pick a concept from a discipline and shoehorn it into some theory/explanation of how the stock market works". To be specific, the first chapter chose the concept of "equilibrium" from physics. Which just really rubbed me the wrong way, because it seemed like he was taking ideas totally out of context and mis-applying them.

(3) After reading the rest of the chapters, I understand a bit more what the author was trying to do. I still don't think he did a particularly good job, but at least the book pointed me to some interesting ideas that I hadn't thought about before, and can guide me to other interesting books.

Still not a book I would recommend overall, but I'm glad I didn't quit after the first chapter since the later ones redeemed the book a bit.

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