All Quiet on the Western Front

All Quiet on the Western Front is the story of World War I as seen by a teen aged German tasked with manning the front. It is a powerful story, written by a guy who served on the front lines. The Nazis banned and burned his books.

The Rebel Allocator

I can't think of a single novel on the topic of value investing...until now. A Google search for "value investing novels" provides a comprehensive list of value investing books that are decidedly *not* novels. The closest thing I can think of is an obscure book a publisher once sent me about buying low and selling high in the shipping industry (creatively named "The Shipping Man"). So in The Rebel Allocator, Jacob Taylor is breaking new ground.

You Down With RFP?

A cyclical stock I have started to buy is Resolute Forest Products. They make many kinds of wood products including lumber, tissue and newsprint.

Billion Dollar Whale

Con men are all over the place. Often, they only get so far before they are discovered. But under the right (wrong?) set of circumstances, they can unleash a financial fury. Billion Dollar Whale: The Man Who Fooled Wall Street, Hollywood, and the World is the story of one such man, who bilked entire countries, top brokers, and investors for billions of dollars.

The Secret of our Success

I think we pretty much all believe that it's our intelligence that separates us from other species. In The Secret of Our Success, Joseph Henrich makes the case that we are hardly more intelligent than primates, if at all, across a number of measures. What separates us is our culture.

Feast of the Goat

There are some books that I know I will never forget, because they have made an enormous impact on me. The Feast of the Goat is one of those books. It is a novel about a real-life cruel regime that ruled the Dominican Republic from the 1930s to the 1960s.

Modern Monopolies

Thanks to the reach of the internet, platform companies are everywhere nowadays. These are companies with monopolistic characteristics thanks to their network effects (e.g. Uber, Google Search, iOS, Facebook etc.). Modern Monopolies: What It Takes to Dominate the 21st Century Economy is all about discussing how to build them, what to avoid, and how to think about them.