Some Recent Books of Note, from Jim Sogi
Moneyball, by Michael Lewis, is about the Oakland A's statistical approach to management . Though this author is not to everyone's linking around these parts, I found the book to have many good ideas and new approaches to data and the underlying statistics. It is an entertaining read, though I just read in the newspapers that the Oakland A's just had the longest losing streak in history so here is another example of randomness overcoming the data history or a changing cycle where all the other teams started using the same methods. There are many market ideas here.
Microtrends: The Small Forces Behind Tomorrow's Big Changes, by Mark Penn, is a book like Megatrends of a few decades ago about statistics from census and surveys about social and political trends. For example, there are more single women than men, 57-43, due to the gay male population.
The Heart of the World, by Ian Baker, is the documentary of a spiritual and arduous physical journey to the Tsangpo Gorge, Tibet, the deepest gorge in the world, and unmapped until recently. Wonderful book for those familiar and interested in Tibetan religion.
*Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)*: Basic Principles, Protocols, and Procedures, 2nd Edition, by Francine Shapiro is an interesting psychological/physical approach to treating PTSD. It's aimed at the professional psychologist, but accessible to the lay reader.
A Colossal Failure of Common Sense: The Inside Story of the Collapse of Lehman Brothers, by Larry McDonald and Patrick Robinson, is a fast read by a bond trader at Lehman about the collapse and apparent errors by the leadership.
The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon, by David Grann, is a fun read about the search in the Amazon for Eldorado, the lost city of gold, and the many who became lost in the jungles and their travails.