How Will You Measure Your Life by Clayton Christensen

The title describes what the book is about. The author looks at three aspects of life to measure: your career, your relationships, and staying out of jail. He spends most of his time on the first two. He uses a lot of business analogies and case studies to prove points. I thought he spent more time describing examples rather than relating them to a person trying to measure his or her life.

I wasn't particularly fond of the book. It just didn't do it for me. There were a few quotes that stood out, and I guess I'll share two of them so I don't give a completely negative review. The first: "It's easier to hold your principles 100 percent of the time than it is to hold them 98 percent of the time." The second quote: "The path to happiness is about finding someone who you want to make happy, someone whose happiness is worth devoting yourself to."

I wouldn't recommend reading the book. Not really worth your time. But those two quotes are pretty good, right?

My rating for How Will You Measure Your Life: 1 star out of 5. Get it here!

Fooling Houdini by Alex Stone

Late post because I was traveling all weekend (again). This week, I wanted to share what might be my favorite and most fun book of the year. Fooling Houdini is Alex Stone's journey as he aspires to the Olympian level of magicians. Sounds childish and made up at first, but it is fascinating as the author takes you through his voyage.

The brief synopsis of the story is Alex Stone is a struggling magician at the beginning of the book. After some personal reflection, he vows to become better, enlisting the help of every great magician and other resource he can utilize. He flies all over the country, he seeks the help of brain researchers, and even goes to clown school. He does everything he can to achieve his dream of successfully performing at the Magic Olympics.

What I liked most was the world that the author unearths as he describes magic magazines, secret societies, magician schools, and legends of magic. It is a historical and educational lesson on magic at the same time. For the most part, he doesn't discuss how tricks are done, but the ones he shares in the end will certainly entertain anyone interested in math.

The author's writing is good for this type of book. There are side comments which are humorous. The story flows very well from chapter to chapter. We meet a ton of characters that are easy to remember, including a blind man who consults for Las Vegas casinos and the Bicycle Playing Cards company because his feel for the cards is that good.

Everyone is entertained by magic. You'd be lying if you said you weren't. I strongly recommend this book.

My rating for Fooling Houdini: 5 stars out of 5. Get it here!

When Genius Failed by Roger Lowenstein

Late post because I'm just returning from Saratoga and I hadn't finished reading before I left. Personally I was fascinated with this book, mostly because of my actuarial background. When Genius Failed is about the company Long-Term Capital Management and their hedge fund, which had unbelievable returns and unbelievable losses, all within a four year span.

John Meriwether led a very successful arbitrage group at Salomon Brothers. Unfortunately, things soured and he left to start his own fund in 1994: Long-Term Capital Management. He recruited some of the best people from Salomon Brothers. He recruited the best in academia, including Robert Merton and Myron Scholes (yes, the same guy who designed the Black-Scholes formula). He even recruited David Mullins, the vice chairman of the Federal Reserve. This group of geniuses was able to raise $1.25 billion, the largest start up ever at that time.

For the first few years, LTCM achieved incredible profits (using their brainy models) while setting all the rules. They dictated above-average fees from clients and pushed around banks who lent money and executed trades. Initially, their goal was to profit from arbitrage between spreads. They were so successful at this, other competitors started to crowd the market and opportunities dwindled. LTCM forced clients to take back money while at the same time starting to delve into equities, derivatives, mergers and equity volatility. However, in 1998 things turned real bad as Russia had major currency issues which affected the worlds' markets and spreads. They were highly leveraged at this time (100 to 1), multiplying the intensity of their problems.

I've probably lost most of my blog's readers by now, so I'm not going to try to explain any more. Eventually, the Federal Reserve ordered banks to meet in their offices in New York. The Fed coordinated a consortium between 14 banks valued at $3.65 billion. Basically a bailout. Sound familiar?

This is one of those books that will only interest 1 in 10 people. You need to read slow to grasp all of the concepts and people, and even I had to re-read sections. But this is a book that should be required reading for everyone in finance, insurance, banking, etc. The author pointed out countless times how this story should be a warning for the future. It seemed other executives mentioned in the booked understood this. Yet, ten years later, the story repeated itself.

How I have never heard of this book until now is mind boggling.

My rating for When Genius Failed: 4 stars out of 5. Get it here!