Antifragile - Things that gain from disorder - My fav book of 2012

The year 2012 Reading Review. 

I’ve read about 36 books this year. It wasn’t the best of the years at all. If you count it doesn’t even come one book per a week. Am sure this must be I hit the lowest of low of all the years (My highest record was 142 from few years back). One book stands out from 30 something books I’ve read in 2012. The book is written by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of Black Sawn and Fooled by Randomness, I loved ‘em both. 

The new book of him is called

 “Antifragile- Things that gain from disorder”.

If you ask anyone what’s opposite of fragile. People say resilient, robust, hard, strong, solid or unbreakable. Taleb argues in his book that we don’t have a word for it in all major languages so he conies the word Antifragile. Fragile = Breaks from volatility (if you drop a wine glass It gets broken easily) , Robust = Withstands volatility (If you throw a metal item I can endure the damage up to a point) & Anitfragile = gains from volatility (If you tear your muscle in gym they grow stronger, if you break your bones they grow stronger better than before. Immune systems strengthen from exposure to germs up to a point)

After reading this intellectually stimulating book I’ve felt, Antifragility is a quality that I’ve long aspired to without having known quite what it is. Taleb uses the example of the mythical creature Hydra, 'you cut the head of a Hydra and two grow out. That's anti-fragility right there.' I think that’s what I want, an antifragile life. Its beyond robust and sturdy.
Someone from WSJ said. This is a bold, entertaining, clever book, richly crammed with insights, stories, fine phrases and intriguing asides. Does it achieve its goal, or does it cram and twist the world on to a Procrustean bed of one theory, thereby somewhat contradicting its own empirical and pragmatic outlook? I am not sure. I will have to read it again. And again.

I’d invite you to read the book so that you can reach to your own conclusion, or at least you can have a conversation with me about the book. Wish you all the best. Wish you an Antifragile life ahead in 2013.