I’ve just published my annual round-up of my non fiction reading for last year here. Do go and read the whole post, but here I’ll just mention my absolute favourites for the year (or at least the ones I keep telling people to go and read): Dark Emu: Aboriginal AustraliaContinue Reading
Everybody Lies, What the Internet Can tell us about who we really are, by Seth Stephens-Davidowitz Seth Stephens-Davidowitz is an economist and data scientist. He uses data, particularly massive data about google searches, to draw conclusions about human behaviour. I loved this book, and to the frustration of my family, IContinue Reading
Factfulness, Ten reasons we’re wrong about the world – and why things are better than you think by Hans Rosling (with Ola Rosling and Anna Rosling Rönnlund) Hans Rosling is the person who introduced me to Ted Talks, with this classic talk on visualising the world through statistics. I’ve used it aContinue Reading
In what is now my traditional first post of the year, I’ve written my usual round-up of my reading for the year here. A fairly eclectic set of books, with perhaps a bit more memoir than normal. My two favourites were these: The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu The Bad-Ass LibrariansContinue Reading
I’ve written my usual annual roundup of my non fiction reading here. My two favourites were The Undoing Project, by Michael Lewis. Whatever book he turns his hand to he seems to find something interesting to say. In this case, I was sceptical, as I felt the definitive way to readContinue Reading
Today’s book review is Weapons of Math Destruction, How big data increases inequality and threatens Democracy, by Cathy O’Neil. Cathy O’Neil is a data scientist, with a PhD in mathematics, who blogs here. She has built models, and also tried to deconstruct them for those affected by them. This book is aContinue Reading
Today’s book review is Not Guilty, by Nicolette Rubinsztein. This book, by an actuary, is about managing a career while being a working mother. So it was pretty much essential that I review it here, where I often write about work, family and even actuarial issues. Nicolette and I have also beenContinue Reading
Today’s book review is Superforecasting: The art and science of Prediction, by Philip E Tetlock and Dan Gardner. When I explain my work as an actuary to people not involved in finance, I explain that I work out how much money the insurance company needs to set aside from the premiumsContinue Reading
Today’s book review is of The Son also rises: Surnames and the history of social mobility, by Gregory Clark. This book is an extremely wide-ranging attempt to answer the question of how much your parents matter to your ability to make your way in the world. A common way of measuringContinue Reading
Today’s book review is a bit different for this blog – the book is a fairly dense history of a part of the world that doesn’t get much attention these days. It is Lost Enlightenment: Central Asia’s Golden Age from the Arab Conquest to Tamerlane, by S Frederick Starr. I bought this bookContinue Reading