Neil Hopcroft

“He figured the odds. And they still beat him”

This book follows the authors self destructive love affair with WorldCom shares as they fell from grace. And describes some of the lessons he learned along the way. I spent about half the book being annoyed by his incorrect grasp of some of the statistics he was quoting, he later redeemed himself by offering some useful insights into the herd instincts of the market. Especially his explanation of the paradox that either fundamental or technical trading is most effective depending on the other being believed by the majority of members of the market – it was something I’d never quite understood, being very much on the fundamentals end of things myself. I was amused also by his debunking of six sigma management aims as being statistical anomolies rather than actually a viable business plan.

For a book about economics it is reasonably accessible, but a good grounding in mathematics or statistics would be a useful tool to understand what he’s talking about.

Who should read this book? If you’ve got a good understanding of schoolboy mathematics and an interest in how the markets work but not much in the way of knowledge about them you will get a lot from this book.

(this brings me up to date on the pile of books in the ‘read but not reviewed’ state, the intention is to keep this state reasonably empty in the future)

The heroine of this book, Rosie, had managed to annoy me by the end of page two by sleeping with someone obviously deeply inappropriate. She started the book as such a vacuous waste of skin and air that I considered giving up on her but although she was irritating I felt I had to find out what happened next. Fieldings writing style, although not deep is very more-ish. Besides, Rosie couldn’t be *that* empty, surely?

I’m glad I stuck with it. Through the book she has two lives, the other is as a dynamic and in-control decision maker in a refugee camp in Africa. There is an interesting contrast between her two lives, which is highlighted when people from one of them see her in the other.

There is also some nice social commentary on how celebrities play the publicity game and the public is manipulated into desired feelings by the media.

Who should read this book? Well, its not a very manly book, don’t bother if you’re looking for action or technology, but if you like your romance a little thought provoking this would be a good read.

I have something of a soft spot for Shaun Hutson, his writing style is utterly disposable, theres no depth to any of his characters or stories, but somehow I still find it all rather compelling. Its a long time since I read any of his books.

This sees him more in a crime thriller genre than the trash horror I remember of his earlier books, it follows the attempts of a radio talkshow host to find a murderer who appears to be preying on various lowlife people of the city.

I’m not sure theres a lot I can usefully say about the book without giving away too much information…if you like Hutsons earlier work this is a little more mainstream, but its probably worth a read, if you don’t know him there are probably better authors out there for this sort of thing.

“A design for living in the digital age”

This is now quite an old book – a lot of it is still pertinant but I wish I’d read it ten years ago. Dyson is clearly someone who gets it, she understood a lot of the potential of the internet way before most people out there.

She takes a tour of the important issues of life on the net, without anchoring them too much to a specific time or place covering anonimity, privacy, intellectual property and governance.

This book now, though, is mostly of historical interest, there are better, more recent books covering similar issues, for all her vision the world is a very different place ten years on.