Rambulatory Ambulatory

Time for more books!  (In addition to Feel Better Little Buddy)

Let My People Go Surfing by Yvon Chouinard
Written by the founder and owner of Patagonia,  this book takes you on a brief tour through the childhood of Chouinard, his early interest in rock climbing (and the subculture surrounding the sport long before it became mainstream), and how his desire to create good climbing tools for himself eventually led to a business that is consistently listed on Fortune Magazine’s top 100 companies to work for.  Aside from just being a good story, Chouinard’s philosophies regarding the company’s role as a steward of the environment and the unconventional policies adopted by Patagonia are both inspiring and a case study of how, in an industry where the bottom line usually means everything, maintaining your integrity and a clear vision of mission can pay off in much bigger ways.  Plus the book has pictures.  Great read.

Swimming to Antarctica by Lynne Cox
Lynne Cox is a pioneer in cold water marathon swimming.  This is her story, from swimming summer league as a kid to being the first person to swim across a number of increasingly freezing (literally) bodies of water.  Don’t go in expecting a literary masterpiece (the woman is an athlete, not a novelist), but the accounts of her actual swims and training make the book worthwhile.  Good read.

photo via

I haven’t said much about books in a while, but the two I’ve read in the past few weeks deserve mentioning.

• Stiff by Mary Roach.  A book about cadavers.  I know, sounds a little morbid and not awesome, but it is.  It’s short, really interesting, and will give you a new appreciation for all that those who donate their bodies to science do for the living.  Read it.
• East of Eden by John Steinbeck.  I am one of the few college grads in the country that never read this book (or seen the movie).   A 600+ page classic, I had no idea what it was about and was a little wary going in.  But I like Steinbeck and decided to give it a shot. Verdict?  I LOVED IT.  I loved every second of this book.  It took me about 5 days to read (thanks largely to the fact that I was stuck in the Chicago airport for 24 hours with nothing else to do.)   I’m sorry I didn’t read it sooner.

He never fell, he never slipped back, he never flew.

~East of Eden

This novel looks at the quantitative methods used to build some of the largest funds on the financial markets, and the managers that ran them, through the 1990s and early 2000s.   The nature of these funds and their enigmatic leaders will make this an interesting read for people who follow Wall Street culture.  For those who don’t, way less captivating.  This book also touches lightly on theories behind the quant funds and, in true Wall Street novel fashion, is written like a thriller.  But unless you find CODs, the Gaussian copula, and statistical arbitrage riveting, the word “thrilling” might be a stretch.

The size of the collapse and way that the system imploded on itself really is fascinating, and for that reason alone the book is worth taking a look at.

Rating: worth reading / meh