#it's up to the reader to pick up on the parallels through inference

[lunanoc]

the more i read through the early dmbj books with the hindsight of things that are unveiled as far down the line as queen's banquet the more i'm floored by the sheer amount of details that have been there from the start explaining and tying everything together so seamlessly

w h a t

[robislav1986-blog]

I’ve been reading a lot of posts in the Dracula Daily tag where first time readers note how surprised they were at how well Bram Stoker is able to portray trauma in his characters. I felt it was worth mentioning that there’s a bit of history from his personal life that may shed light on that. In 1882, Bram Stoker received the bronze medal from the Royal Humane Society. It was awarded to him for his efforts in rendering aid to a drowning victim.

According to reports of the incident, Stoker was traveling via steamboat when he witnessed a fellow passenger deliberately jump into the Thames River. Stoker dove in after the man and tried to keep his head above water until they were picked up by a boat. When attempts to revive the man failed there, Stoker proceeded to *carry* the stranger to his house, laid him upon his kitchen table, and called his brother, a doctor, to render medical aid. Ultimately, they were unable to resuscitate the man.

The man that Bram Stoker tried to rescue remained unidentified, though some thought he may have been a soldier due to some branding on his skin and a missing finger from some previous injury. 

Knowing that about Bram Stoker, it’s no surprise that he was able to present PTSD in a nuanced and sincere manner after having that kind of encounter with death. And given mainstream Christianity’s position on suicide being a mortal sin, it’s not hard to infer that Stoker’s efforts were motivated by the desire to save not just a man’s life, but his very soul as well. Even with all of Stoker’s efforts, the man’s death would have weighed pretty heavily on his mind. It’s only natural to assume that Stoker must have carried a considerable level of guilt from that experience.

So yeah, I think the reason that Stoker portrayed PTSD so well is that he was probably unpacking his own trauma through his writing.

With that in mind, it’s not hard to draw parallels between this real-life tragedy and Lucy’s death in the novel. One was a nameless (possible) soldier who had presumably been forsaken by society and had nowhere else to turn, and the other was a bright young woman who was struck down in her youth when her adult life was only just beginning. And this is ultimately what makes Abraham van Helsing Bram Stoker’s self-insert. Like Stoker, Van Helsing was presented a stranger in desperate need of help, whose life and very soul were on the line. And, like Stoker, Van Helsing proceeded to move heaven and earth, doing everything in his power to save this individual. And still came up short.

I also think that a lot of Bram Stoker’s qualities are reflected in the other characters as well, and not just the protagonists. A lot of commenters have remarked on Dracula having so many characters who do good for its own sake, whether its a small coastal community giving a hero's burial to a brave sea captain or a handful of peasants risking the wrath of a supernatural being to save a traveling solicitor. It’s easy to see how such portrayals of universal goodness can come across as trite or insincere, but it’s wholly earnest when portrayed by Stoker, because the characters’ capacity for courage and kindness are a reflection of the moral fortitude of a man who wouldn’t hesitate to jump into a river to save the life of a stranger.

I can picture Stoker, hunched over his writing, trying to come up with the words to properly convey the tragedy of Lucy. He pauses and his gaze falls upon that bronze medal, a reminder of his valiant but futile efforts to save a lost soul he encountered by total happenstance. It’s not hard to imagine him writing those scenes while remembering that night where he stood in his kitchen, clothes still damp from his dive into the Thames, listening to the doctors as they solemnly tell him that there’s nothing more that can be done.

Ultimately, what sets Van Helsing apart from his creator is that Stoker was able to give Van Helsing a second chance. The Dutch physician was ultimately able to redeem his failure by saving others from Lucy’s fate. There may have been some level of catharsis for Stoker in writing the triumph of his heroes, and I like to think he found some level of peace in that.

[aiulbones]

Three Years with the Rat

I just finished this novel by Jay Hoskings and I have mixed feelings. In a way, it is everything that I hate about the worst kind of science fiction (in my opinion). The sci-fi elements are inconsequential; 99% of this story could have stayed the same if you removed the scifi elements.

It brings up some interesting concepts in solipsism and time as three dimensional rather than linear as we experience it, but it kind of stops there, at bringing it up. It doesn’t really take the time to explore it since it doesn’t really take the time to explore the one character who is immersed in it, Grace. In the end, we only ever see Grace from the outside, from her brother’s POV, from her boyfriend’s POV. The defining, traumatic experience of her childhood is only ever mentioned obliquely through their perspectives. The reader is left to infer her motivations, her hopes, her dreams from the snippets of her life that her brother witnesses. What are the conversations in which she is so engrossed in that she can just talk to herself for a year straight? Especially now that she has resolved the biggest mystery in her life, the discovery of the entrance to this parallel dimension? What was she hoping to do on the day she asked her brother to go with her and he said no? She has no interest in talking to him or spending extended amounts of time with him or revealing her secrets to him. Wouldn’t bringing him at all compromise the purity of her precious subjectivity and be counter to her philosophy of solipsism? The narrator is the one character who repeatedly claims not to understand either concept at all. It is revealed at the end that portions of the story were, in fact, completely in his mind, but he doesn’t even recognize it until after the fact and never has to make the choice to remain in that state or to leave it, not like Grace does. 

True, is you are talking about solipsism, then this is the only way that we experience other people. We do only ever know a few observable facts, we don’t ever truly apprehend them. We don’t know what’s going on in their heads and can only be sure of what sensations we ourselves are experiencing. On this point, an argument can be made that the novel does delve into solipsism, but how does that differ from any other first-person narrative? If that’s your argument, then any other novel written in the first person is a meditation on solipsism, which is just incredibly lazy if that was your purpose.

In truth it’s just a story about two men coping with the disappearance/death of a sister/girlfriend. It is about their grief and how it changes them. The narrator is finally able to climb out from the shadow of the older sister who was smarter, more successful, and more attractive than he was, but who he never really knew. The boyfriend allows his own anger (at himself, at the ones who hurt Grace) to eclipse his self, bringing himself to his lowest point, and then having to rebuild from there. All of that could have been told in a story with no scifi elements at all.

Would I have finished this book in a week if it was just a straight realistic fiction novel about a college drop-out’s grief cycle? Without the mystery of the BOX feeding my curiosity and driving me forward? Would I have even picked this book up in the first place? It is well-written, smartly written, and some of the most engrossing moments have nothing to do with the Box or the philosophy or the multiple dimensions at all, they were just moments between two siblings, a couple, some friends. So who knows. Maybe there’s a universe just a few steps sideways where I could find out. 

[thetalkingbrain]

Life after Love Island.

The premise: over the course of 8 weeks, between 10-12 people live in a villa in Spain, “couple up” with one another, go on dates and have to sleep in the same bed. While people do have sex (do bits) in the villa, a kiss (a snog) is also a very big deal. One of life’s many paradoxes. Over the course of the 8 weeks, couples can “re-couple”, new islanders are introduced to the villa, at some point there’s a separate villa called Casa Amor and the public votes daily for their favorite pair. Those with the least votes are then in danger of being “dumped” from the island weekly. And if you make it to the finale, the public votes for their favorite couple that will win 50,000 pounds. And even then - only one person from the couple will randomly pick the envelope with all the money in it and gets to decide if they’ll share it with their partner to answer the ultimate question - were they in it for the money and fame, or, as the title infers, for love?

Knowing this, the reader may be as surprised as I was to find that I learned some important lessons about myself and humanity by watching this show. I took a very immersive approach to what I’m referring to as my research of Love Island -I watched it in the morning, on the train to work, after work, getting ready to go out, in the bathroom, in the bedroom. This show became the mechanism through which I reflected upon my journey through love thus far. In this show, I began to see a lot of parallels to the real world of dating I could empathize with, and also so many men with six packs.

The entire plot of the TV show is first dates. Then people talking to a camera and to one another, analyzing their experiences. It’s here that I found my first parallel. Although I am not oft to be found wearing a bikini thong around my apartment or calling women “birds”, if you change the villa to my living room and a bikini thong to a reasonable pair of cotton briefs, you’ll find me hashing out every detail of all my crushes and dates with my friends. I saw a part of my experience in a group of people on the other side of the pond.

In Jack and Dani, the cute redhead and group mom who cries at everything, and the dad bod office supplies salesman with veneers he purchased in Turkey, I see my parents, who met in high school, my friends who met in college, or tried online dating once and ended up immediately falling in love. Jack and Dani were only with each other the entire show. They are the story I cling to when I think about “it happens when you least expect it” and “when you know you know.” These lucky bastards have already found each other, and in all the ways that I’ve been trying to meet people. And now, they have a reality TV show, Jack and Dani: Life after Love Island. OBVIOUSLY, things are going well and they’re going to be together forever. Right?

There’s the player, Adam-who’s built like a God and is always “keeping his options open.” There’s the incredibly hot girl, Megan, that makes the other beautiful girls insecure because all the guys want to be with her, but she’s also insecure. There’s Laura, who’s 29 years old and is always talking about what it’s like to be “older.” I’m 27. That was upsetting. There’s the gorgeous dancer, Samira, who’s really funny but just seems to be unlucky in love. And then there’s the “nice guy”, Alex, who’s medically too pale to be on a show where they spend all day in the sun. Which is ironic because he’s a doctor. Alex is that guy you find a lot of people cheering for but you don’t understand why and you feel bad about it. But he somehow makes it the semi-finals, without ever successfully dating anyone on a show where that’s all you do. And he goes through an ugly phase of trying on the arrogant confidence of Adam, the player, and ends up calling a girl a tease because she doesn’t like him anymore. Misogyny is not a cute look, Dr. Alex.

Most of the women on the show have had work done. And yet I find their openness about it quite endearing. I find myself wanting to find healthy ways to feel beautiful and feminine and glammed up without feeling ashamed of it. I’ve had moments where I’ve felt afraid to embrace my feminine side, for fear that I would have to sacrifice other parts of me that maybe didn’t fit under that same category of characteristics. But after watching incredibly hot people take on challenges where they have to eat a bunch of fruit and then transfer that chewed fruit into another person’s mouth who then spits that chewed up fruit into a smoothie cup to get their cup filled up first, I feel like I CAN truly embrace all parts of me across the socialized gender spectrum.

I had this thought about 25 episodes in: If these gorgeous idiots can date, then so can I. It’s not easy being vulnerable, but it’s doable. It used to be that going on a date was the hardest part. Right now - it feels like just getting to the date part is laborious. And I get frustrated by that and tend to turn my frustration into a joke, because if I’m not laughing about it, I’ll probably keep it bottled up for a bit and then cry in the passenger seat of my mom’s Subaru Crosstrek on the way home from shopping on Thanksgiving weekend. Which honestly, was a great place to cry and a great person to do it with.

In this riveting, 56 episode social experiment, I found both entertainment and inspiration. Watching these people try each other on as partners 24/7 was like taking a crash course on all the worst and best case scenarios I’ve experienced or hypothetically lived out in my mind. Except instead of my voice - it’s narrated by a very sassy scotsman. On Love Island - you have to confront whatever is happening to you head on. You are trapped living with the people you’re dating and you either have to work it out or leave and miss out on your chance to win 50,000 pounds…and fall in love!

Maybe it’s a reach to pull so much reflection from a show that imitates such a microscopic version of reality. And maybe, definitely, fame is part of the allure for joining such a show. But art imitates life, and we’re all just working with what we got to find some answers. On this journey through life, love and self discovery, it’s sometimes hard to remember what I’m doing anything for. And you know what, I may never know. But I have no plans on giving up, and I’m sure as hell not getting dumped from the island. Because as it turns out, I don’t want to be one of those jerks who misses out on the grand prize. Whatever it may be!

[americanmyths-blog]

Ally Thomas

Dr. Rothenbeck

ENGL 2270

26 April 2017

           According to James Truslow Adams, the American Dream is defined as “life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability for achievement.” In the early 1900s, many immigrants uprooted from their homes in other countries and came to America in hopes of creating a better, more prosperous life. My Antonia by Willa Cather illustrates the struggle immigrants faced while hoping to achieve the American Dream. Antonia Shirmerdas and her family are poor immigrants from Bohemia that came to America in hopes of living out the American Dream. The novel is mainly centered around Jim Burden and Antonia Shirmerdas and their struggle to achieve what they believe is the American Dream; however, Cather demonstrates the struggle through nearly all of the characters from the novel. Cather sheds light on how difficult it may be for the individuals in My Antonia to achieve their own versions of the American Dream because of the direct influence of their social class, ethnic background, and gender.

           Many immigrants started out in the working class of America because of how poor they were. They had no ancestors to inherit any money or land from so they had to build their prosperity from nothing. Mr. Shirmerdas, an immigrant from Bohemia, had moved to America because his wife thought he could provide better opportunities for their family in the land of promising hope. Many Americans had taken advantage of the fact that he was a working-class immigrant and had nothing. He became depressed and homesick when he realized he could not obtain the life he had hoped for his family so he killed himself. “Surely, his exhausted spirit, so tired of cold and crowding and the struggle with the ever-falling snow, was resting now in this quiet house” (30) Mr. Shirmerdas tried to do what he thought was best for his family, but he failed when he ultimately gave into his depression and homesickness. The words “exhausted” and “cold and crowding” are significant in this quote. His spirit was exhausted from the crowding of other immigrants that were trying to do exactly what he intended to. The “ever-falling snow” could represent the constant oppression the Shirmerdas underwent because they were working class immigrants. Cather describes the house as “quiet” to help the reader visualize the solemnness their family is experiencing since Mr. Shirmerdas death. His actions were a direct result of the discrimination the lower working-class immigrants received. Mr. Shirmerdas had been a man with dignity and honor in Bohemia. In America, he just turned out to be a poor farmer struggling to keep food on the table for his family. He came to America full of hope and promise, and was set up to fail by the way social classes were in order in the early 1900s.

           As a result of Mr. Shirmerdas actions, his daughter Antonia was forced to give up on her dream of going to college and getting an education to work on the farm. Since they were in the working class, they could not afford to send Antonia off to college; she was needed to stay and take on the responsibility of supporting her family. When Jim first asks Antonia if she would like to go to school she harshly brushes it off by saying she “ain’t got time to learn.” Later, she comes to Jim and says, “sometime you will tell me all those nice things you learn at the school, won’t you, Jimmy?” (35) In this quote, the reader can see that although Antonia is trying to be strong for her family, she is deeply saddened that she will not be able to get an education like her father. Had the Shirmerdas stayed in Bohemia where they were prosperous and not looked down upon, Mr. Shirmerdas would not have been driven to take his own life. Antonia could’ve easily followed in her father’s footsteps like she had planned to if only they had stayed in Bohemia.

           Jim is given all the opportunities to get an education and become successful the way Antonia wishes she could, but education is not his American Dream. Jim’s American Dream is Antonia. He gives Antonia up by going away to college and leaving her behind. He passes up the chance to be with her and in the end, after he marries another woman, he still longs to be with Antonia. In the very last paragraph of the novel Jim says, “Now I understood that the same road was to bring us together again. Whatever we had missed, we possessed together the precious, the incommunicable past.” (95) Jim is found to be longing for/living in the past because his childhood with Antonia was the happiest time of his life. Jim has realized his life did not go the way he wanted and wishes to reconnect with Antonia in order to gain a brighter future for his unhappy life. Even though Jim was given more opportunities because of his ethnic background and social class, he longs for the opportunity (to be with Antonia) that he passed up. He thought his dream was to pursue an education and become successful, but really his American Dream was to have a family with Antonia.

Willa Cather redefines what the American Dream means to women through gender roles played by the characters in My Antonia. Although Antonia defies society’s depiction of what a woman should be like, she is not able to live out the American Dream she picked for herself as a direct result of her ethnicity and social class. Her father’s death forces her to take on a more masculine role than she had wanted for herself. “Cather’s androgynous Ántonia, suggests both a “mixing” of gender qualities and also the dissatisfaction that comes from constructed gender roles.” (Ashton) Once Antonia realized she could not be a career woman with an education she had to choose the path of domesticity. However, this fact does not stop her from creating a somewhat fulfilling life for herself. “Ántonia, too, even if a woman, realizes that her only chance to survive is through hard work and good attitude.” (Ştefanovici) She takes on a new job for the Harling family, becomes pregnant, and then eventually gets married. Since the American Dream has failed Antonia, Cather tries to make it a point that although women should not be held to the domestic home life, if it is what they choose, they may still find happiness in it. Antonia is allowed a second chance of living a happy self-fulfilling life through creating a family.

           On the other hand, Cather illustrates the limitless opportunities women have to achieve the American Dream through Lena Lingard. Lena is a young Norwegian immigrant that possess great determination and radiating independence. She, like Antonia, comes from a poor immigrant family; Lena is not respected by the upper-class which makes her journey to achieve the American Dream more difficult. However, this does not discourage her in the least. Lena becomes a successful dressmaker without feeling the need to have a husband around to assist or even entertain her. Lena states, “I don’t want a husband. Men are all right for friends, but as soon as you marry them they turn into cranky old fathers, even the wild ones. They begin to tell you what’s sensible and what’s foolish, and want you to stick at home all the time. I prefer to be foolish when I feel like it, and be acceptable to nobody.” (75) Here, Cather is trying to convey to the reader an ideal that is almost unheard of in this time period. A woman can be perfectly content and prosperous without male companionship. Cather is showing the audience that women can have ambitions other than marriage and the domestic life. Women have the capability to accomplish whatever they wish whether it is a marriage and family, or running a successful dressmaking business. The opportunities for women to accomplish the American Dream are endless.

           Cather portrays nearly all her female characters as strong, willful, and independent; yet, she portrays Jim, the male narrator, to have qualities typically associated with women. Jim is very thoughtful and sentimental. There are several instances in the novel in which Jim is found trying to prove his masculinity. After Jim kills the snake in chapter seven and Antonia praises him for it, he thinks to himself, “she went on in this strain until I began to think that I had longed for this opportunity, and had hailed it with joy.” (17) Jim had mentioned before that Antonia had sometimes taken a “superior tone” (16) with him. After he had stepped up and killed the snake, he felt as though he had proved his masculine, superiority to Antonia. Here, Cather conveys to the audience that it made Jim uncomfortable that Antonia possibly had more masculinity than Jim. “Jim’s desire to assert his manliness parallels the male desire to assert his dominance over the women now stepping into his territory.” (Ashton) The reader can infer that Jim is possibly dissatisfied with the way his American Dream has turned out because he was insecure and always found trying to assert his superiority. Although he did get an education, it did not make him more of a man like he had hoped.

           In a way, all of the characters of the novel fail at achieving the American Dream. They all had to make choices to give up one thing in order to achieve another. Mr. Shirmerdas gave up his life in Bohemia to please his wife and create what he thought would be a better future for his family. He ultimately gave up his American Dream after he decided to kill himself. After his death, Antonia had to give up her American Dream of an education to take care of her family. Jim pursued his educational American Dream, but gave up his chance to be with Antonia. Lena gave up her chance to be with Jim when she decided to stay committed to her career. They are all successful in some ways, but ultimately have a sense of dissatisfaction with the choices they have made. “Success does not make the characters forget the past and the lost chances.” (Ştefanovici) The characters of My Antonia are partly satisfied with the way their lives have turned out but they cannot seem to let go of the regrets they have for passing up the opportunities they had in the past. In a way, they are haunted by the choices they have made.

           It is important to think about what it means to be American. For the immigrants of the novel, it means to live a life of freedom with endless opportunities to be successful. In many ways, they have lived the life of the American Dream. However, it is not as easy to achieve the American Dream or “Americanness” as these immigrants had hoped. Social order, ethnicity, and gender all have shaped how easy or how hard it is to accomplish a life of prosperity. The Shirmerdas and Lena Lingard were not respected in the least when they first arrived in America. In the case of Mr. Shirmerdas, he could not handle the pressure of feeling out of place. He could not rise to the occasion and accomplish success in America. Lena Lingard had incredible ambition to accomplish her goal, and with her success came respect of the upper-class. Cather could be trying to show that being American means living out your dreams without any regrets. “The fulfillers of the American Dream, Willa Cather says, men and women alike, should be strong, independent, in full control of their destiny with no regrets for whatever they could have done and did not do because of stereotypical attitudes. Ambitions should be free and not manipulated by a nation who needs immigrants who, through hard work, can lead to the growth of that nation and country.” (Ştefanovici) No matter the gender, ethnicity, or social class, individuals should always feel in control of their lives and the success of their dreams. Discrimination and regrets should not discourage individuals from pursuing their goals to live out the American Dream. To be American, is to live life happily without any regrets.

  Works Cited

ŞTEFANOVICI, Smaranda. "Sense of Loss in Willa Cather's My Ántonia." Studia Universitatis

Petru Maior - Philologia, vol. 19, July 2015, p. 110. EBSCOhost, ibezp.lib.lsu.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edb&AN=111932626&site=eds-live&scope=site&profile=eds-main.

Everton, Kristina Anne, "Willa Cather: Male Roles and Self-Definition in My Antonia, The

Professor's House, and "Neighbor Rosicky"" (2006). All Theses and Dissertations. Paper 821.

Adams, James Truslow. The Epic of America. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1931.

Cather, Willa. My Antonia. 1918.

[heliosfinance]

How to Analyze a Business, the Sherlock Holmes Way

Peter Bevelin has written a few amazing books, like Seeking Wisdom: From Darwin to Munger, A Few Lessons for Investors and Managers, and the latest All I Want To Know Is Where I’m Going To Die So I’ll Never Go There.

But one of his lesser-known books that I have on my all time favourites lists is A Few Lessons from Sherlock Holmes. Through this book, Bevelin has distilled Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes into bite-sized principles and key quotes. In fact, this book is much more than a collection of quotes. It is a way to learn the powers of observation, understand the limits of our mind, and counter the narrative fallacy.

Bevelin writes in the book…

What distinguishes Holmes from most mortals is that he knows where to look and what questions to ask. He pays attention to the important things and he knows where to find them.

At the start of the book, Bevelin quotes mathematics and science writer Martin Gardner saying this about Sherlock Holmes –

Like the scientist trying to solve a mystery of nature, Holmes first gathered all the evidence he could that was relevant to his problem. At times, he performed experiments to obtain fresh data. He then surveyed the total evidence in the light of his vast knowledge of crime, and/or sciences relevant to crime, to arrive at the most probable hypothesis. Deductions were made from the hypothesis; then the theory was further tested against new evidence, revised if need be, until finally the truth emerged with a probability close to certainty.

There you have it! The entire process of solving a mystery is what the above paragraph contains –

In short, the three necessary qualities for good detective work are –

Observation – Gathering evidence

Deduction – Drawing inferences from evidence and working on them

Knowledge – Processing the evidence, testing the hypothesis, and arriving at the truth in light of what you know (and don’t know)

Drawing Parallels with Business Analysis Is the work of an investor or an analyst working diligently through a company’s analysis any different than that of a detective in search of the ultimate truth in a crime? I believe not.

And thus, Bevelin’s work on Sherlock Holmes is a great guide for anyone wanting to learn how to analyze businesses to pick the right kind of stocks for long-term investment.

As I sat down to make notes from the book, here is what I ended up with (click on the image below or click here to see a bigger version)…

…a hand-made poster that now adorns my wall and which suggests a series of checklist points that can be of immense help while analyzing businesses.

Just consider these five big ideas from Sherlock Holmes contained in the above poster (and the relevant texts from Holmes’ books, in blockquotes, below), which is also what another brilliant detective (in the investment world) and thinker Charlie Munger suggests us to do –

1. Know Human Nature (What motivates people and what interests them – a great tool while assessing managements and crowd behaviour)

Human nature is a strange mixture, Watson. You see that even a villain and murderer can inspire such affection that his brother turns to suicide when he learns that his neck is forfeited.

2. Learning Never Stops (Be a learning machine, asks Charlie Munger)

Education never ends, Watson. It is a series of lessons with the greatest for the last.

3. Reason Backwards (Invert, always invert, Munger advises)

The essential factor in this method consists in working back from observations of conditions to the causes which brought them about. It is often a question of deciding the doings of yesterday by the records found today.

4. Cultivate Multidisciplinary Thinking (Build a latticework of mental models, suggests Munger)

Breadth of view…is one of the essentials of our profession. The interplay of ideas and the oblique uses of knowledge are often of extraordinary interest.

One’s ideas must be as broad as Nature if they are to interpret Nature.

5. Don’t Make the World Fit Your Tools (Don’t be a man with the hammer, asks Munger)

The advances on the laboratory side and the perfection of instruments have added much to our powers of diagnosis, but they have given some men the idea that they are everything and the use of one’s eyes and hands is looked on as old-fashioned. The man whose first idea in an obscure thoracic case is to have an x-ray plate taken and who cannot “bother” with physical signs does not deserve the name diagnostician.

Road Map on How to Think In his testimonial, Nassim Taleb says this about A Few Lessons from Sherlock Holmes…

We Sherlock Holmes fans, readers, and secret imitators need a map. Here it is. Peter Bevelin is one of the wisest people on the planet. He went through the books and pulled out sections from Conan Doyle’s stories that are relevant to us moderns, a guide to both wisdom and Sherlock Holmes. It makes you both wiser and eager to reread Sherlock Holmes.

It’s brilliant, this slim 73-page book that culls the essence of the world’s greatest detective’s teachings. Peter Bevelin demonstrates what students of Holmes have always known – that the adventures of the fictional detective are not just entertaining tales, but a road map on how to think, do research and hit upon a solution to a problem, whether it pertains to crime, or life, or investing.

“You know my methods. Apply them!” Holmes said in The Hound of the Baskervilles, which was published in 1902. More than a century later, that advice remains of great importance if you want to become a better thinker and investor.

Disclosure: I participate in the Amazon Associates Program, which simply means that if you purchase a book on Amazon from a link on this page, I receive a small commission. The book does not cost you any extra. I give away 100% of the commission for the betterment of the under-privileged.

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