Review #1, 2020 - An Economist Walks into a Brothel: And Other Unexpected Places to Understand Risk

As unusual as the title sounds, is as unusual as the book gets. Let me start off by saying, this is not me as a biased, partly qualified, working in an insurance company, actuary reviewing the book, but as a genuine reader, who till 3-4 years ago used to run away from non-fiction books, because reality is horrific enough to see on TV and read in newspapers, than to continue reading about it in hardback or on the Kindle, right? Wrong!

Allison Schrager, the author, has managed to beautifully pen down her, and other personalities' (such as Kingpins of movie industries, tax evading families, etc.) experiences of risks in the most layman language to begin with, that it just makes investing and risk management sound like shopping in a grocery store for various vegetables. It builds up to the complexities of horse breeding, cartels and poker scenes, breaking them down to the basic rules of the financial world, that it makes me wish that our textbooks for Actuarial exams were written in such a manner, because retention is so much easier with such interesting examples!

Please don't get mistaken that this book is just for financial knowledge or for quenching the thirst of academics. This book can prove to be many things, for instance a manual to hedging, insurance and investments, to an article read for those interested in off the hook, twisted and not usually reported in the newspaper information (like me).

"Makes investing and risk management sound like shopping in a grocery store for various vegetables."

I'd be fooling myself, and anyone who has ever read such books, to say that it keeps you gripped through all the 200 odd pages. It doesn't. I lost my interest int eh last 50 pages, as soon as it touched insurance (for reasons listed above), others might lose interest in some other parts of the book. Nonetheless, if you're up for an off-beat book, I'd definitely suggest this.