The Appeal

I've read a few murder mysteries over the years (I enjoy the genre every now and then), but The Appeal is the most unique I've ever read. You'll understand right away as soon as you start reading it. I almost put it down because I didn't understand how it could be good, but I didn't and I'm glad for it because it was very good!

What's Gotten Into You

Our bodies contain some 60 elements (oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, magnesium etc). How were these elements made? Where did they all come from? How did they get into us? Dan Levitt takes us through the estimated history in his masterful book, What's Gotten Into You

Outlive

Want to live a longer, healthier life? Peter Attia's book Outlive is all about how to do that.

Shogun

In the year 1600, European and Japanese cultures clash in James Clavell's epic novel Shogun.

Karsan Value Funds: 2023 Q1 Results

Karsan Value Funds (KVF) is a value-oriented fund, as described here. Due to securities regulations, the fund is not open to the public at this time. Should that change in the future, there will be an announcement on this site.

Quit

Everybody knows we're supposed to persevere when things aren't going our way. "If you're going through hell, keep going," says Winston Churchill. That attitude can help when you really need to get something done. But applied in the wrong context, it can cost us a lot too. In Quit, Annie Duke argues that we overvalue things like grit, and as a result don't walk away enough.

No One Wins Alone

I really enjoyed Mark Messier's book No One Wins Alone. As a fan of the Edmonton Oilers growing up, the book brought back a lot of memories, and provided a view of what it was like on the inside.

Hammond Power

I recently sold all my shares of Hammon Power (HPS.A). I have no beef with the company: it has done extraordinarily well. It's simply a case of price catching up with value.

Trade Wars are Class Wars

Massive trade deficits and surpluses are often caused by financial repression. That is, some artificial mechanism is keeping wages or spending down in some country, causing exports to rise relative to imports in that country. As such, trade wars are not really conflicts between countries, but between classes within those countries. So argue the authors in the excellent book Trade Wars are Class Wars.

Economic Facts and Fallacies

The government, the media and society at large take a lot of stuff for granted in forming their policies and opinions. The problem is that a lot of it is wrong. In Economic Facts and Fallacies, Thomas Sowell refutes a lot of the "conventional wisdom".

Chip War

Over the last several decades, silicon computer chips have shifted from being parts used by fringe, nerdy, hobbyist groups to becoming integrated into almost everything we do. This is even more the case in the military. Where once bombs had to be launched by the dozens to even have a limited chance of hitting a target, today's precision-guided (thanks to onboard chips that make mammoth calculations) missiles are neccessary to win wars. Chips have become a matter of national security. Chip War makes this case to the reader, and provides details on the industry's evolution, with a focus on the countries that play a role in shaping this industry.

The Alice Network

Helping The Allies fight back against the Nazis was a vast network of spies embedded in the territories occupied by the Germans. With many of the men either dead or fighting on the front lines, a lot of this spy work was done by women. The Alice Network is a novel about one node of a spy network that actually existed.

Rules of Civility

I've enjoyed a couple of Amor Towles' other books, so I decided to grab his first novel, Rules of Civility

Karsan Value Funds: 2022 Q4 Results

Karsan Value Funds (KVF) is a value-oriented fund, as described here. Due to securities regulations, the fund is not open to the public at this time. Should that change in the future, there will be an announcement on this site.

For the fourth quarter ended December 31st, 2022, KVF gained $7.58 per share, increasing the value of each share to $47.11. This 22% pre-tax return trounced the mid-single-digit returns generated by the S&P 500, Russell 2000 and S&P/TSX indices. Currency gains helped returns by $0.29 per share in the quarter.