Humble Bookshelf

A paean to mankind's most wonderful and enlightening activity.

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Nimium boni est, cui nihil est mali. ('The good is mostly in the absence of bad.')

Ennius

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Lloyd Alexander on #reading http://ebks.to/1tjwLqY

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To understand the future, you do not need technoautistic jargon, obsession with "killer apps," these sort of things. You just need the following: some respect for the past, some curiosity about the historical record, a hunger for the wisdom of the elders, and a grasp of the notion of "heuristics," these often unwritten rules of thumb that are so determining of survival. In other words, you will be forced to give weight to things that have been around, things that have survived.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Antifragile

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The paradox of information and predictability

As noted earlier I've been reading Nassim Nicholas Taleb's Antifragile, and it has, quite possibly, changed my life. There are ideas in it that I'd like to say that I've had, at least in prototype form, but seeing them spelled out like this is eye-opening. 

Some of the most impactful passages for me have been talking about planning and problem solving. Essentially, because Black Swans  1) exist;  2) tend to dominate in their effects; and 3) are unpredictable, most attempts at long-term planning and data-driven problem solving are futile, and worse leave you with a false sense of security because you think you've taken everything into account and made a sound choice, but in fact you've done nothing of the sort. However, because of this false sense of correctness, you'll act as if everything is sorted, and when the Black Swan comes it will hit you squarely where you were least expecting it.

Hitting this passage, near the end of the book, this morning in particular stirred me to write:

Yet people want more data to "solve problems." I once testified in Congress against a project to fund a crisis forecasting project. The people involved were blind to the paradox that we have never had more data than we have now, yet have less predictability than ever. More data -- such as paying attention to the eye colors of the people around when crossing the street -- can make you miss the big truck. When you cross the street, you remove data, anything but the essential threat. As Paul Valéry once wrote: que de choses il faut ignorer pour agir -- how many things one should disregard in order to act.

I feel this acutely in my own life. There's a desire to evaluate everything prior to acting, but in fact there's no way you can evaluate everything, and the value of action decreases as it is delayed. 

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What's more, perhaps, it helps us grow in ways that life cannot. Experience may be the best teacher, but she is limited in what she can do -- the odds of you experiencing the hunt for a killer white whale are pretty small (and if you do happen to find yourself in this position, please don't kill whales, m'kay?), but you can read Moby Dick whenever you want. 

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On this day in 1885, American poet, playwright, and author DuBose Heyward was born in Charleston, South Carolina. He is best known for his 1925 book Porgy, which tells the story of Porgy, a crippled street-beggar in the black tenements of Charleston in the 1920s.

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There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.

Joseph Brodsky

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I've been reading Nassim Nicholas Taleb's Antifragile for the last several days, and am as fascinated by it as I was when I first read Black Swan years ago (in fact, I just ordered a new copy of Black Swan because I want to read it again). This debate is talked about in the book, and was quite fun to watch.

I'll be posting some reading notes from Antifragile shortly. It is a truly extraordinary book.

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Welcome to my humble little bookshelf

I've always enjoyed reading. I remember rather distinctly getting in trouble in fifth grade for reading The Flight of the Intruder, almost certainly bought at a Friends of the Library used book store, because of the cursing and violence and sex in contained. I don't think I understood any of that, but the idea that a book could get a person in trouble was one that left a lasting impression. As I've grown, of course, I've come to recognize the power of ideas, and the danger that those ideas represent to the fragile and insecure. And though I've gone through a long digital adolescence during which I was certain that all things old would be replaced by their electronic counterparts, I've since swung back around to thinking that books — paper and cardboard and glue and ink that they are — remain perhaps the perfect delivery vehicle for those ideas. Books, then are dangerous. They are extremely compact and versatile stores of information, and they have the power to transform you and those around you if you're not careful (or, perhaps, if you're very very careful). I don't read as much as I used to, and certainly not as many books. I miss reading, and the joy that it brings, and I want to try to bring that feeling back. The idea behind Humble Bookshelf is to celebrate books, and reading, and of course writing. Herein you'll find quotes about reading, information about authors, some of my own reading notes and reflections, and generally anything else that fits under the aegis of 'reading.' I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoy writing it.

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Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers.

Charles William Eliot