The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb -

I've finished The Black Swan (305 pages) and still trying to figure out what he's saying. The Black Swan is interesting book: I really enjoyed it - things like this from Chapter 11
There are problems projecting from the past because the same data can confirm a theory and also its exact opposite. P.185
• "If you survive until tomorrow, it could mean that either a) you are more likely to be immortal or b) that you are closer to death."
• "If you are a turkey being fed for a long period of time, you can either naively assume that feeding confirms your safety or be shrewd and consider that it confirms the danger of being turned into supper."
• Your financial planner's unctuous past behaviour may indicate his/her genuine affection and concern for your retirement; it may also confirm her/his mercenary and calculating desire to get more of your business.
"Both conclusions [in these three cases] rely on the exact same data."

"...teach yourself to imagine the person uttering them [insults] is a variant of a noisy ape with little personal control. Just keep your composure, smile, focus on analyzing the speaker not the message and you'll win the argument."

There is not much in The Black Swan about investing, and yet it's all about investing.
I love Taleb's asides. For instance: "I am safe since I never were ties (except at funerals)."
"It is unfortunate that one learns most from people one disagrees with..."
Nissim ends his book with the sentence: "And thank for for reading my book." A class act.

Capital Ideas Evolving - I have two chapters left to read...not a bad book by Peter L.
The chapter on the Yale Endowment Funds is terrific. Most endowment funds do not beat the S&P 500...imagine! And they say professional money managers do better. It's tosh. Yale's fund bested just about everyone and now covers some one third of the university's expenses..

Your Financial Edge is written mostly by Jon Fuerbringer, not Paul McCulley of PIMCO. I doubt if I'll finish this book as Fuerbringer, who wrote for the New York Times for some years, does not really know what he's talking about. In many cases, he seems to have bought 'the party line'...the value of foreign investing, for instance. There are not enough direct quotations from papers he cites, and 'they' know it better than he does. It's hard for seasoned writers to admit this.
'Dividends" is not in the index: imagine! How can you have the financial edge and not mention dividends? This book, while close, is just not quite right.

While we're on books, I'm told How to Retire Rich by James O'Shaughnessy has pages on the dividend growth strategy pages 70-72 and 260-261. Briefly, he says:
• select Value Line stocks with A financial strength
• select [common] stocks with greater than average yield
• select stocks with largest projected dividend growth