Robert

I loved this book, I thought I knew all the evils of Iraq and had read it all but this book took me further down the rabbit hole plus gives other example of how war and chaos are artificially manufactured to create the shock that allows leaders to manipulate the populace to warped capitalistic theories.

This is not a book, it is a scattered disjointed collection of musings about randomness and irrational thinking with stock brokering as the central metaphor to explain all concepts. Its like he wrote down various thoughts on the toilet bowl on various days some of which the paper should have been used at said instead of being included this book. This book has no flow even when he gets off a couple of good points here and there which makes it like a rap song with a lame beat, cheezy lyrics, but a couple good one liners. Predictably Irrational, Outliers, Buyology are all you need to have heard anything Taleb mentions and these books have flow,central themes, and original material that is universally appealing rather than skewed to Wall Street.

Some authoors are meant to write one great book, this could be the one for T. J. English. I believe it will be a seminal book for Cuba and the Mob. What this author does that I loved so much is the multi dimensional perspective of how everyone is portrayed. No one is all good and no one is all evil. People don't think they are doing evil when they do it, the mobsters are cool as hell if you like partying, sex, dancing, gambling and such, but they murdered and extorted. He tells you what they did and why they did it, you can make up your own mind. He contrasts the Mob's stories in with the story of Castro's revolution and their opposite philosophies. Most reviews of this book have been excellent except for a few who I suspect hate Castro for thier own reasons. The fact is as it is , the regime of Batista was corrupt even though the island was a lot of fun, there were many local cubans who resented the fact mobsters and foreigners were making millions from exploiting their homeland, wrong or right the majority rose up and kicked them out. What this author does is paint the picture of the events leading to their revolution and gives all these anecdotal stories to further deepen the understanding of the debauchery going on so one can see how even today it is hard for America's leaders to have credibility with the Cubans who know this history. Think, known U.S. criminals partying it up in Havana whoring out the local women, influencing the politics by kickbacks to the dictator, and with their friends and family living lavishly while the majority of locals lived in squalor. Mobster's still got their due, as a matter of fact one comes away from this book (at least I did) with a respect for the intelligence and vision of Meyer Lansky. This book reads like an exciting movie with multiple plots and flashbacks and an assortment of interesting characters and events. Though the narration feels stiff to start as the story heats up so does the narration.

Before reading the previous review , I did not know that mark Hamill was not in this audiobook, I love all the Star Wars (Dramatizied) audiobooks so much, it is like watching the movie inside your head . It is the greatest listening experience I have had. I am speaking of the series, not just Return of the Jedi, which I loved, though minus Billy Dee, whose voice is very distinctive I felt a little cheated but it was still great because all the other characters are so well casted to the original voices. I loved Ann Sachs, her voice is captivating as Leia and Perry King as Han Solo is very good and they have good chemistry in this book. This is the best audiobook ever as far as I am concerned. I don't know why it is not number one every week.