Trading Bases by Joe Peta

Three posts in three weeks. Batting 1.000%! Pun intended. You see, this book is about baseball, gambling, and wall street. Baseball, 1.000% batting average. Get it?

Corny jokes aside, let me explain how I found this book. I've been doing a lot of studying for my next actuarial exam at Barnes and Noble. Each night on my walk out, I pick up a few books and read the back cover to see if I can find any interesting books. Trading Bases is one that caught my eye. So much so that I started reading it in the store.

The beginning of the book is captivating. Joe Peta was a stock trader with a seven-figure job when an ambulance ran him over one January morning. Confined to a wheelchair with a broken leg and other injuries, he began watching baseball, something that reminded him of his childhood. Soon he was laid off from his job and found he had a ton of time to kill. He decided to start reading some of the analysis on the upcoming baseball season. Then an idea spawned.

Why not apply his skills from the trading desk to a model to predict baseball games? He would use various sabermetrics in an attempt to beat the Vegas betting lines. He bet most of the games every day, varying the amount of the wager depending on the confidence of the model. Long story short, he ended up with a return of 41% in 2011 and 14% in 2012.

Trading Bases is not for everyone. If you don't like sports, don't even pick this up. You don't have to be a baseball fan, but it probably helps to be familiar with the sport given all of the terminology he uses. The author goes into detail about his methods and some of his calculations (there are some formulas and a lot of tables). If you enjoy math and statistics, you'll really like these parts of the book. Joe Peta shares a lot of stories about his days as a trader and his personal life. Some of the trading stuff was pretty cool, but I skimmed over all the family stuff. I should also say that the author shares a bunch of personal stories in footnotes, most of which are pretty funny.

If you're into the subject matter, you'll fly through the book. Personally I found the book entertaining and have recommended it or discussed it with a bunch of friends.

My rating for Trading Bases: 4 stars out of 5. Get it here!

Wooden by John Wooden

Two posts in two weeks. I'm getting back on track. This one is going to be short because I'm tired, but that does not take away from the book. I've owned Wooden for quite some time and this was probably my tenth time reading it. It's one of those books that I can read over and over and still enjoy it every time.

Wooden is broken up into three parts. The first is about family and values, the second is on success and achievement, and the third is on coaching and teaching. The subtitle explains it well: "A lifetime of observations and reflections on and off the court." The book is written in short blurbs, sometimes a paragraph, sometimes a page. They are on a variety of topics. Coach Wooden shares numerous stories from his life and his teams. You can open the book to any page and start reading...there is no real story line throughout the book.

Obviously this is right up my alley in terms of basketball and coaching. But everything in the book applies to way more than basketball and coaching. It applies to all aspects of life. Coach Wooden was incredibly humble and smart. Everything he did had a purpose. Everyone should have their own values, but Coach Wooden's are a perfect example of what values should look like.

If I was stranded on an island for the rest of my life, this is one of the books I would want with me. (This hypothetical may be good for a post in and of itself.)

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

Quiet by Susan Cain

I'm back. It's been a full two months. Clearly I took some time off from reading. But I'm getting back into it. I recently finished two books that I was reading at the same time and I've ordered five more from Amazon that should be in any day now. With that being said, I'm going to take up writing reviews again.

Quiet has been on my radar for a while. I've never read it because I thought it was an uninteresting and somewhat depressing topic to read about. The book is about the power of introverts and offers a thousand reasons why being an introvert is not bad. The author does a wonderful job tying together the enormous amount of research that has been conducted on this topic over the years. She participated in classes and activities geared towards introverts. She met with numerous academics and leaders in the study of introverts.

The author admits she is an introvert, which maybe makes her a bit biased. However, according to research, one-third to one-half of people are introverts. Most would probably say I'm more on the introvert side of the spectrum. Although I'm in agreement with the author that you are not always an introvert or extrovert...it changes depending on situations.

I know this isn't the most exciting thing to read about, but the way the book is written is as entertaining as a knowledge-sharing book can be. It is not dry or boring. It provides a lot of insight into motivations and thoughts of both introverts and extroverts. I think it is really practical for considering other members of any team you may be on. Quiet was not marketed as a leadership book, but in my opinion this is one of the better leadership books out there.

My rating for Quiet: 4 stars out of 5. Get it here!

P.S. For the longest time, I've tried to figure out a way to sneak a TED talk into one of my posts. Well, Susan Cain delivered a TED talk basically about her book. Check it out.