Best books read in 2010

[pj]

Kerviel's L'engrenage

Translation would be gears



His point of view.



I have two lessons from it,

either SocGen are idiots, or they knew everything before it blew-up and then behaved as idiots (Kerviel's thesis).

Another, once more: do not trust media to give

the real facts.



For example, I remember the 'fact' stressed not once, "Kerviel never ever took vacations".



This seems to be simply not true (he didn't stress

the fact but simply said "on my return from vacation in 2007").



Anyway, it's an interesting

book about one Phrench guy against one Phrench bank.

[Clopinette]

I am currently enjoying this one about how the brain works. Not new, but amazing and really funny too.



"Phantoms in the brain" by Ramachandran & Blakeslee

[MadMax]

"either SocGen are idiots, or they knew everything before it blew-up and then behaved as idiots (Kerviel's thesis)."



or:

both idiots and knew.

[pj]

> or:

> both idiots and

> knew.

I stand corrected,

MadMax.

[pj]

when life nearly died by Benton.

A book about Permian extinction.



If I had read it in my adolescence I would be somewhere wild doing some serious stratigraphy.



Alas (or luckily), no translation into French.

[pj]

two of them

Ancestor's tale

By Dawkins.



Yeah, same old biology and evolution stuff.

Yes, he repeats himself a bit.



I enjoyed every single sentence.



Just don't try to read fast.

There is lots of things to think about and ingest.



And of

Big Short



It was already presented [url=/Show%20Post.aspx?PostIDKey=140521]here[/url].



One thing.

If anyone tries to present this credit crisis as example of black swan

I'll spit into his face Chew



(I won't spit at ladies, so the gender is intentional)

[baghead]

just finished a year in the merde which I very much enjoyed. very funny book if you enjoy a good laugh about French stereotypes.



A British, 20 something year old bloke spends a year in Paris.



An American pitches the protagonist to join him teaching English courses:



"But I don't have any teaching qualifications." Jake's whoop of laughter made every pigeon between him and the Eiffel Tower take to the air in terror.

"What did you have for dinner last night, Silvie?"

"I made some crap."

"You mean crêpes? Pancakes."

"Yes, pan-cack."

The hardest thing was to keep a straight face.

"Ok, Philippe, what would you say to the waiter if you had no cutlery?"

"Er, excuse me, I want a knife and a fuck"

It was cruel, and my French wasn't any better than their English, but sometimes you couldn't help but giggle.

"At five PM, I was working."

"Good."

"At seven PM, I was sitting on ze train."

"OK."

"At nine, I was listening ze radio."

"Was that AM or PM?"

"No, FM."

[polysena]

Smiley thx for the excerpt, sounds indeed light and smiling !

[Eidetic]

I read The Big Short over the weekend - truly a great read, and the best book I've read so far in 2010.

[Nonius]

Lewis Carroll, The Game of Logic