*What book are you reading ?

[Barking_Mad]

'The Wisdom of Crowds' - James Surowiecki

Ill quote the blurb as Ive got cold and cant think to type!

Smart people often believe that the opinion of the crowd is always inferior to the opinion of the individual specialist. Philosophical giants such as Nietzsche thought that "Madness is the exception in individuals but the rule in groups". Henry David Thoreau lamented: "The mass never comes up to the standard of its best member but on the contrary degrades itself to a level with the lowest member." The motto of the great and the ordinary seems to be: Bet on the expert because crowds are generally stupid and often dangerous. Business columnist James Surowiecki’s new book The Wisdom of Crowds explains exactly why the conventional wisdom is wrong. The fact is that, under the right circumstances, groups are remarkably intelligent, and are often smarter than the smartest people in them. Groups don’t even need to be dominated by exceptionally intelligent people in order to be smart. Even if most of the people within a group are not especially well-informed or rational, it can still reach a collectively wise decision. Why? Because, as it turns out, if you ask a large enough group of diverse, independent people to make a prediction or estimate a probability, and then average those estimates, the errors each of them makes in coming up with an answer will cancel themselves out.

I'd really recommend the book. Excellent read and full of some fresh thought provoking ideas about how groups of people should (and should not) organise themselves in order to be effective. Id have thought Anarchists might find it an interesting read.

Link to Amazon page

 

[Sid's Snake]

'The Wisdom of Crowds' - James Surowiecki

Ill quote the blurb as Ive got cold and cant think to type!



I'd really recommend the book. Excellent read and full of some fresh thought provoking ideas about how groups of people should (and should not) organise themselves in order to be effective. Id have thought Anarchists might find it an interesting read.

Link to Amazon page

You should read Canetti - Crowds and Power.

 

[jeff_leigh]

Gils all Fright Diner - A. Lee Martinez

 

[Barking_Mad]

You should read Canetti - Crowds and Power.

Cheers for that, Ill add it to my rather long book reading list!

 

[madamv]

Clement Freud Autobiog. Fabulous, witty, droll. Only on chapter 3!

 

[tastebud]

Yesterday I read Ian McEwan's The Daydreamer. It's a children's book as well as for adults. I mostly enjoyed the 21 page introduction which made me lots and then the first chapter. The end was a bit depressing this morning when I finished though; the boy became an adult and fell in love - not a spoiler as this is included in the description at the back of the book. I liked the book as I could identify with the child protagonist a bit. He also reminded me of my boyfriend.
Thoroughly enjoyable for a sunny Saturday, though I wouldn't say, 'go out and read it'.

Today I must finish Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi otherwise someone's gonna get mad with me.

 

[Dirty Martini]

I finished Joseph Roth's The Spider's Web and Orwell's Coming Up For Air, which I liked a lot.

Now it's The Coming of the Third Reich by Richard J Evans.

 

[Bomber]

I'm making a second & concerted effort to read James Elroy's, 'Cold Six-Thousand',

 

[Orang Utan]

Good luck! You'll need it!

 

[Dubversion]

i've joined the Jonathan Letham fan club after just 50 pages of Motherless Brooklyn.

fucking fantastic..

"EATMESTRINGJOKE!!!"

 

[Belushi]

I'm making a second & concerted effort to read James Elroy's, 'Cold Six-Thousand',

I found it unreadable, a bitter disapointment after American Tabloid.

 

[jeff_leigh]

I found it unreadable, a bitter disapointment after American Tabloid.

after reading "Black Dahlia" i've got the other 3 in his LA Quartet on my list, from what i hear he's had quite an eventful private life before he started writing, don't know if there's any biographies out there though

 

[spartacus mills]

Just finished 'Sex & Rockets: The Occult World of Jack Parsons' by John Carter. Parsons was one of the inventors of jet propulsion type wossnims and was also a pretty serious occultist.
Now started Jean Rhys' 'Wide Sargasso Sea'.

 

[Tom A]

Currently reading "Talk To The Hand", by Lynne Truss. Only gotten as far as the end of the first chapter, but it seems promising, and I am glad I read Eats, Shoots, and Leaves beforehand.

 

[laptop]

Just finished 'Sex & Rockets: The Occult World of Jack Parsons' by John Carter. Parsons was one of the inventors of jet propulsion type wossnims and was also a pretty serious occultist.

Skimmed that when I was supposed to be working Found it a bit dissapointing on the occult stuff, but a fine evocation of overgrown boys playing with high explosive in the arroyos

 

[laptop]

Oh, and on Saturday I read John Hersey's Hiroshima.

Woah.

 

[scumbalina]

Snuggled up today and read "The Long Way Round". Really didn't like it at first, but ended up enjoying it...


Was only reading it cos I'm rereading the Dark Materials trilogy for the milllionth time and have lost the last book somewhere

 

[Orang Utan]

after reading "Black Dahlia" i've got the other 3 in his LA Quartet on my list, from what i hear he's had quite an eventful private life before he started writing, don't know if there's any biographies out there though

Yes - his autobiography, My Dark Places, is the most honest I've ever read - he admits to stuff most people wouldn't admit to themselves - quite uncomfortable reading at times

 

[jeff_leigh]

Yes - his autobiography, My Dark Places, is the most honest I've ever read - he admits to stuff most people wouldn't admit to themselves - quite uncomfortable reading at times

cheers for that Orang Utan i'll check it out

 

[dynamicbaddog]

Stranded - a collection of short stories by Val Mcdermit

 

[chooch]

Oh, and on Saturday I read John Hersey's Hiroshima.
Woah.

Aye. It's good. First of its kind, probably.
Reading:
a thing called The Culture of Defeat, about the response of three cultures to defeats of variuous kinds; undecided whether it's bollocks or not.
and a likeable history of the Jews in Europe.

 

[GuerillaPhoto]

Bill Hicks

Agent of Evolution

It is an ok read actually I have read most of the books about his life. this one is written by all his friends as a collective telling stories about there times with him.

 

[spartacus mills]

"Sex and Rockets: The Occult World of Jack Parsons"

Skimmed that when I was supposed to be working Found it a bit dissapointing on the occult stuff, but a fine evocation of overgrown boys playing with high explosive in the arroyos

That's pretty much what I thought too.

 

[Fledgling]

America - Franz Kafka

The novel I've not yet read though the trial and the castle were outstanding, hadn't read anyting that great for a long time, I'm going to be reading a book of criticism on the Castle and would like to look at the metamorphosis and other sories.

But curently I'm reading the Ragged Trousered Philanphropists, it is excellent.

 

[spartacus mills]

Geoffrey Gorer: The Life and Ideas of the Marquis De Sade.

 

[maya]

Geoffrey Gorer: The Life and Ideas of the Marquis De Sade.

any good?

i'm reading, erm- ( *braces self*) Bram Stoker: The Lair Of The White Worm
...which i'm going to re-name "The Curse of Teh White Worm", since every time i've tried to open the book to read the first page, something has disturbed me away from actually reading it...

 

[spartacus mills]

Originally Posted by spartacus mills
Geoffrey Gorer: The Life and Ideas of the Marquis De Sade.

any good?

The book or De Sade's ideas?

 

[Masseuse]

George Orwell:Essays

It's ace. Corker essay titles including "The decline of the English Murder" and "How the poor die".

 

[Fledgling]

George Orwell:Essays

It's ace. Corker essay titles including "The decline of the English Murder" and "How the poor die".

That's a good couple of essays, some of his domestic essays about enlgish cooking, cheapness of books and the ideal pub are quiet refreshing after some of his heavier essays.

 

[wiskey]

i can already tell that by the end of middlesex i shall be sad its over

well i've finished it in just over a week and actually i was ready for it to end although it did keep my interest right up to the last word.

a thoroughly enjoyable book.

now i want to read his other one.