I'm reading the Mad Ship by Robin Hobb. I'm a sucker for character driven books, Hobb does that really well. I've only read 24 books this year so if I want to make it to 52 I've really got to step up my game.
Other People's Money, by the economist John Kay. Only just started yesterday, but I'm hooked. The prologue to the book is Kay's famous "Parable of the Ox", reproduced below: Not many people know the events that followed. A few years later, the scales seemed to become less and less reliable. Repairs were expensive; but the fair organiser had a brilliant idea. Since attendees were so good at guessing the weight of an ox, it was unnecessary to repair the scales. The organiser would simply ask everyone to guess the weight, and take the average of their estimates. A new problem emerged, however. Once weight-guessing competitions became the rage, some participants tried to cheat. They even sought privileged information from the farmer who had bred the ox. It was feared that if some people had an edge, others would be reluctant to enter the weight-guessing competition. With only a few entrants, you could not rely on the wisdom of the crowd. The process of weight discovery would be damaged. Strict regulatory rules were introduced. The farmer was asked to prepare three monthly bulletins on the development of his ox. These bulletins were posted on the door of the market for everyone to read. If the farmer gave his friends any other information about the beast, that was also to be posted on the market door. Anyone who entered the competition with knowledge concerning the ox that was not available to the world at large would be expelled from the market. In this way, the integrity of the weight-guessing process would be maintained. Professional analysts scrutinised the contents of these regulatory announcements and advised their clients on their implications. They wined and dined farmers; once the farmers were required to be careful about the information they disclosed, however, these lunches became less fruitful. Some brighter analysts realised that understanding the nutrition and health of the ox was not that useful anyway. What mattered were the guesses of the bystanders. Since the beast was no longer being weighed, the key to success lay not in correctly assessing its weight, but rather in correctly assessing what other people would guess. Or what others would guess others would guess. And so on. Some, such as old Farmer Buffett, claimed that the results of this process were more and more divorced from the realities of ox-rearing. He was ignored, however. True, Farmer Buffett’s beasts did appear healthy and well fed, and his finances were ever more prosperous: but, it was agreed, he was a simple countryman who did not really understand how markets work. International bodies were established to define the rules for assessing the weight of the ox. There were two competing standards – generally accepted ox-weighing principles and international ox-weighing standards. However, both agreed on one fundamental principle, which followed from the need to eliminate the role of subjective assessment by any individual. The weight of the ox was officially defined as the average of everyone’s guesses. One difficulty was that sometimes there were few, or even no, guesses of the oxen’s weight. But that problem was soon overcome. Mathematicians from the University of Chicago developed models from which it was possible to estimate what, if there had actually been many guesses as to the weight of the animal, the average of these guesses would have been. No knowledge of animal husbandry was required, only a powerful computer. By this time, there was a large industry of professional weight guessers, organisers of weight- guessing competitions and advisers helping people to refine their guesses. Some people suggested that it might be cheaper to repair the scales, but they were derided: why go back to relying on the judgment of a single auctioneer when you could benefit from the aggregated wisdom of so many clever people? And then the ox died. Among all this activity, no one had remembered to feed it.In 1906, the great statistician Francis Galton observed a competition to guess the weight of an ox at a country fair. Eight hundred people entered. Galton, being the kind of man he was, ran statistical tests on the numbers. He discovered that the average guess (1,197lb) was extremely close to the actual weight (1,198lb) of the ox. This story was told by James Surowiecki, in his entertaining book The Wisdom of Crowds.
I read the amazing, amazing War Junk by Ha Jin. It's part of a course I'm doing on Chinese literature (didn't think I'd enjoy it, actually am though - don't get much time to read for fun so reading novels as part of a module is actually really rewarding). It's about the experiences of a Chinese Korean War POW and it is heartbreaking and exhilarating and just excellently paced. Interestingly enough, he based it on the Chinese language memoir of an actual POW and his experiences both in American prisoner camps and coming back home as a disgraced veteran. Either way, can't recommend it enough.
I have been reading "Essential Readings" of Thích Nhất Hạnh. I have been reading a lot of eastern texts like this one over the last six months, and so most of the ideas in the book have been pretty redundant for me. However, the middle chunk has blown me away. He discusses the Buddhist concept of "emptiness," which I have failed to understand for a long time. But he uses wonderfully understandable language, and I feel like I finally have a meaningful understanding of some concepts I have been struggling with for a while.
Stephen King's new short story collection comes out tomorrow! Anxiously awaiting for its arrival in the mail!!!! I'll edit in my first impressions tomorrow evening. In the meantime, still chipping away at Les Miserables. EDIT: Sadly it didn't arrive until last night! Since then though, I've devoured the first half of the stories. Here's my verdict: The one "horror" story (Mile 81) wasn't great. It was really heavy-handed and then ended abruptly. The ending was pretty meh, it's similar to his earlier endings which are all pretty bad. The Dune was fantastic and is one of the most King-esque stories in the collection. Premium Harmony is a drastic departure than his usual style, but is really great. Ur is another standout, but it's actually been published before (just not in a collection), so I'm not really counting it as "new".
Not reading, but listening - Hedge Knight by George R.R. Martin So far, very good.
Demigods on Speedway by Aurelie Sheehan. It a short book of loosely connected short stories revolving around life in Tucson. Aurelie absolutely nails the small intricacies of everyday life for someone. Each story is only an hour or two snapshot into a characters life but it makes you feel like you know the character by the end. Little fun fact, the author is actually a professor here at the University of Arizona and the dog trainer I have been using was a student of hers. Apparently she is a great professor and person. So if you're looking for a quick two or three hour read I'd highly recommend this book.