Bad Run of Cards?

 I seem to be having a bad run of luck in my book selection process right now. 

I barely managed to finish Dead Lies Dreaming, by Charles Stross, which is in the Laundry Files universe, but which really wasn't up to his usual standards.

Then, I tried to get into a book about blockchain and crypto, but it was very poorly written and edited - rambled on and on, so I gave up.

Next was a book about corruption in the FBI, but it turned out to be a rehash of the Russian collusion narrative, and so I gave up a couple chapters in.

Then, I picked up the first novel, Isolate, in a new series by L.E. Modessit - a great author whom I have followed for years - and I hung in there for two weeks trying to finish it, but at last, alas, I decided that I just didn't give a crap any more. It just rambled on and on, repetitive and uninspired, going nowhere in particular, for around 700 pages.

Then there was Red-Handed, by Peter Schweizer, whose works I have really enjoyed over the years. Unfortunately, most of the subject matter in this book had already been covered by him a while back, and is merely topical again due to Biden being in the White House. Gave up about three chapters in.

Most recently, I decided to try the Invisible Library series by Genevieve Cogman. About 50% of the way through it I realized I didn't care what happened to the characters in the slightest, and didn't even like them very much, so I gave up on that one, as well.

Currently reading another book on Bitcoin, which, while it does contain a few factual problems, at least is better written than the crypto book and fortunately is short enough to avoid the rambling, unfocused approach of the aforementioned.

I'm going to try another new author tonight. Hope something finally is worth completing.

A Random Walk Down Wall Street by Burton Malkiel

 There was nothing terribly surprising to me in this classic by Malkiel. I'd pretty much read or heard it all before.

That said, however, for someone just getting started or looking for facts and figures and objective truth about the most effective way to invest their money without the ups and downs of the stock market keeping them awake at night, this book is a great primer.

Some choice tidbits:

"The key to investing is not how much an industry will affect society or even how much it will grow, but rather its ability to make and sustain profits."

"Discount brokerages make money on the spread between bid and ask prices on stocks."

"The golden number for American xenophobes—those fearful of looking beyond our national borders—is at least fifty equal-sized and well-diversified U.S. stocks (clearly, fifty oil stocks or fifty electric utilities would not produce an equivalent amount of risk reduction). With such a portfolio, the total risk is reduced by over 60 percent. And that’s where the good news stops, as further increases in the number of holdings do not produce much additional risk reduction."

"It turns out that the portfolio with the least risk had 17 percent foreign securities and 83 percent U.S. securities. "

A good definition:

"Some stocks and portfolios tend to be very sensitive to market movements. Others are more stable. This relative volatility or sensitivity to market moves can be estimated on the basis of the past record, and is popularly known by—you guessed it—the Greek letter beta."

There was a study performed investigating herd mentality, how people are influenced by those around them to do things that are irrational or counterfactual - often the case in investing.

"If caving in to the group was the result of social pressure, the study reasoned, one should see changes in the area of the forebrain involved in monitoring conflicts. But if the conformity stemmed from actual changes in perception, one would expect changes in the posterior brain areas dedicated to vision and spatial perception. In fact, the study found that when people went along with the group in giving wrong answers, activity increased in the area of the brain devoted to spatial awareness. In other words, it appeared that what other people said actually changed what subjects believed they saw. It seems that other people’s errors actually affect how someone perceives the external world."

In other words, the people you associate with can affect your apprehension of reality. Scary, huh?

A Perfect Day, with Explosions by Dorothy Grant

 I have literally read everything Dorothy Grant has written, pretty much all in novelette length, and enjoyed it immensely.

A Perfect Day, with Explosions is the latest in her Combined Operations series, set on a planet where terrorist groups are rebelling against the Empire which controls the planet. Each story seems to consist of a heroine thrown into wild and crazy combat operations out of an ordinary life of innocence, yet somehow rising beyond who they were, thriving through trials and tribulations, and finding love with a special forces guy.

Nothing terribly deep, dark, or heavily philosophical, but just good fun and an evening or two of entertainment well worth the ebook price. 

Dissolution by W. Michael Gear

 

There's a "diary entry" in this book that talks about how, when the triggering event occurred, our politicians and media had done such an effective job of setting Americans at odds with each other that there was not enough trust left between factions, and society by and large simply imploded. Doesn't require much in the way of science fiction's "willing suspension of disbelief" to accept the premise, I'm afraid.
I've often said over the last decade or so that money is a ficitional concept, based on nothing but the agreement to treat it as a valid form of exchange between consenting adults; a bunch of ones and zeroes in cyberspace, for most part. Our fiat currency, the US dollar, used to be backed by an actual "hard" asset, gold, but that was done away with around fifty years ago, so Gear's story about hackers taking down the banking system and destroying, first, the US, and later the world economy could happen at any time.
Do you have faith that your fearless leaders in the free world actually understand economics and could rapidly restore or rebuild our system without running roughshod over our liberties? Better read Gear's book to see how things could all end up in the crapper.

I've been reading Gear's books for decades, and this author hasn't disappointed yet.

Other series of note:
Way of the Spider
Donovan