What I am reading now!

Two books, but actually just one- "The New Paradigm of Financial Markets" by George Soros. Why Soros? Well, first of all this is my first introduction to the famous investor beyond his sound bites on business television. Second, He doesn't write bad at all and last (after I read in the book itself) that he too in a way is a WWII Jewish victim and I am quite interested in the period's history and that of the holocaust. But lest I suggest anything, Soros is certainly not a holocaust victim. Coming back to the book, its a short piece about how the current international financial order begets creating a new paradigm to understand it better and to prevent any future financial apocalypses!

Soros talks about his "life's work"-his "Theory of Reflexivity" that is the impact of human behavior on social situations, like the financial markets for instance. His chief hypothesis being that humans tend to imbibe knowledge from their environment (Cognitive function) and attempt to use it to their advantage (Manipulative function) but in the process end up injecting their biases and beliefs in to their intended actions. The final result is that the expected outcome deviates from the actual outcome and this results in a feedback loop which as usually is the case in human affairs turns out to be vicious. I will come back to this after I finish the book.

And the second book! Leo Tolstoy's collections of short stories. Why? Simply because I have to narrate a new story (repetitions are rarely permitted) to Priya every night and LT's stories have just the right amount of emotion and drama to satisfy her and induce sleep.

Amitava Ghosh-Sea of Poppies

First of all, the new blog picture belongs to Amitava Ghosh, one of India's foremost contemporary writers and certainly destined to be included in the list of all time greats who write in English. His latest work, "Sea of Poppies" a novel set in the 1830s-1840s is something I would recommend to all.