Book Recommendations From Andrew Ross Sorkin, Larry Summers, and Nassim Taleb

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Here is an excerpt from 250words.com on book recommendations from Andrew Ross Sorkin, Larry Summers, and Nassim Taleb. They recommend books such as Age of Ambition, The Shifts and the Shocks, Every Shot CountsThe Sleepwalkers and more.

Last week I posted book recommendations from six tech CEOs. This week, I also I curated book recommendations, but this group is different. Andrew Ross Sorkin is the author of Too Big to Fail and the founder and editor of Dealbook, a New York Times column dedicated to financial news. Earlier this week, Sorkin published an article detailing his summer reading list. He mentioned six books: “The Shifts and the Shocks” by Martin Wolf, “The Innovators” by Walter Isaacson, “Money and Tough Love” by Liaquat Ahamed, “Age of Ambition” by Evan Osnos, “Overwhelmed” by Brigid Schulte, and “So Much to Do” by Richard Ravitch. I’ve highlighted two books below.

At The Boston Globe, Larry Summers answered questions about his summer reading list. Summers is reading eight books:“Sleepwalkers,” by Christopher Clark, “The Director” by David Ignatius, “Every Shot Counts” by Mark Broadie, “The Second Machine Age” by Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee, “Coming Apart” by Charles Murray, “The Rise of Meritocracy” by Michael Young, “House of Debt” by Atif Mian and Amir Sufi, and “Lords of Finance” by Liaquat Ahamed. (Summers also revealed that he enjoys reading Brian Greene and Steve Pinker.) I’ve also highlighted two books from Summers’ list below.

See full article by 250words.com

Sorkin’s Book Recommendations: The Shifts and the Shocks

The Shifts and the Shocks: What We’ve Learned-and Have Still to Learn-From the Financial Crisis by Martin Wolf

There have been many books that have sought to explain the causes and courses of the financial and economic crisis which began in 2007–8. The Shifts and the Shocks is not another detailed history of the crisis, but the most persuasive and complete account yet published of what the crisis should teach us about modern economies and economics.

The Shifts and the Shocks identifies the origin of the crisis in the complex interaction between globalization, hugely destabilizing global imbalances and our dangerously fragile financial system. In the eurozone, these sources of instability were multiplied by the tragically defective architecture of the monetary union. It also shows how much of the orthodoxy that shaped monetary and financial policy before the crisis occurred was complacent and wrong. In doing so, it mercilessly reveals the failures of the financial, political and intellectual elites who ran the system.

Sorkin’s Book Recommendations: Age of Ambition

Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China by Evan Osnos

From abroad, we often see China as a caricature: a nation of pragmatic plutocrats and ruthlessly dedicated students destined to rule the global economy—or an addled Goliath, riddled with corruption and on the edge of stagnation. What we don’t see is how both powerful and ordinary people are remaking their lives as their country dramatically changes.

As the Beijing correspondent for The New Yorker, Evan Osnos was on the ground in China for years, witness to profound political, economic, and cultural upheaval. In Age of Ambition, he describes the greatest collision taking place in that country: the clash between the rise of the individual and the Communist Party’s struggle to retain control. He asks probing questions: Why does a government with more success lifting people from poverty than any civilization in history choose to put strict restraints on freedom of expression? Why do millions of young Chinese professionals—fluent in English and devoted to Western pop culture—consider themselves “angry youth,” dedicated to resisting the West’s influence? How are Chinese from all strata finding meaning after two decades of the relentless pursuit of wealth?

Summers’ Book Recommendations: Every Shot Counts

Every Shot Counts: Using the Revolutionary Strokes Gained Approach to Improve Your Golf Performance and Strategy by Mark Broadie

Mark Broadie is at the forefront of a revolutionary new approach to the game of golf.  What does it take to drop ten strokes from your golf score? What part of Tiger Woods’ game makes him a winner? Traditional golf stats can’t answer these questions. Broadie, a professor at Columbia Business School, helped the PGA Tour develop its cutting-edge strokes gained putting stat. In this eye-opening new book, Broadie uses analytics from the financial world to uncover the secrets of the game of golf. He crunches mountains of data to show both professional and amateur golfers how to make better decisions on the course.  This eagerly awaited resource is for any player who wants to understand the pros, improve golf skills, and make every shot count.

Summers’ Book Recommendations: The Sleepwalkers

The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914 by Christopher Clark

The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914 is historian Christopher Clark’s riveting account of the explosive beginnings of World War I.

Drawing on new scholarship, Clark offers a fresh look at World War I, focusing not on the battles and atrocities of the war itself, but on the complex events and relationships that led a group of well-meaning leaders into brutal conflict.

Clark traces the paths to war in a minute-by-minute, action-packed narrative that cuts between the key decision centers in Vienna, Berlin, St. Petersburg, Paris, London, and Belgrade, and examines the decades of history that informed the events of 1914 and details the mutual misunderstandings and unintended signals that drove the crisis forward in a few short weeks.

Taleb’s Book Recommendations: The Tyranny of Experts

The Tyranny of Experts: Economists, Dictators, and the Forgotten Rights of the Poor by William Easterly

Over the last century, global poverty has largely been viewed as a technical problem that merely requires the right “expert” solutions. Yet all too often, experts recommend solutions that fix immediate problems without addressing the systemic political factors that created them in the first place. Further, they produce an accidental collusion with “benevolent autocrats,” leaving dictators with yet more power to violate the rights of the poor.

In The Tyranny of Experts, economist William Easterly, bestselling author of The White Man’s Burden, traces the history of the fight against global poverty, showing not only how these tactics have trampled the individual freedom of the world’s poor, but how in doing so have suppressed a vital debate about an alternative approach to solving poverty: freedom. Presenting a wealth of cutting-edge economic research, Easterly argues that only a new model of development—one predicated on respect for the individual rights of people in developing countries, that understands that unchecked state power is the problem and not the solution —will be capable of ending global poverty once and for all.

Taleb’s Book Recommendations: A Few Lessons from Sherlock Holmes

A Few Lessons from Sherlock Holmes by Peter Bevelin

A Few Lessons from Sherlock Holmes is a book for those who want to improve their thinking. It is a practical and enjoyable book that tells in a short-easy-to-read way about what we all can learn from Sherlock Holmes. Peter Bevelin has distilled Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes into bite-sized principles and key quotes. This book will appeal to both Sherlock fans as well as those who want to think better. It contains useful and timeless methods and questions applicable to a variety of important issues in life and business. We could all benefit from ‘A few lessons from Sherlock Holmes’.

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