Here’s what I’ve been reading for the past three months:
- Invention and Innovation: A Brief History of Hype and Failure — Vaclav Smil digs through the history of invention to focus on the failures — the innovations that started out promising but ended disastrously, that were the next big thing but fell far short of the hype, or have been overhyped for decades but are still more science fiction than reality — and the lessons that can be learned from it. (notes)
- To Engineer is Human: The Role of Failure in Successful Design — Engineering design, going back to building the pyramids, has been a process of learning from repeated failed designs that lead to improvement and success. The similarities between engineering and investing come through in the reading. Notes to come.
- How to Avoid Losses in Your Investing — Written in 1920, this short book covers all the ways you can lose money — speculating, gambling, margin, the wrong broker, and more. You can lose money the same way today. It’s a reminder of how little has changed with investing in over a century.
- Poor Charlie’s Almanack — I read a prior edition of Poor Charlie’s Almanack years ago. The new edition is an excuse to slow read the book again again. A free version can be found here.