I heard that was a completely different type of book, more her Erma Bombeck homebody side, and steered clear of it.

This is sorta true. It's about raising her kids. I really like Shirley Jackson, but freely admit that I haven't read her in 50 years. I remember thinking that my favorites were Among the Savages and The Sundial.

I've just reserved some of her books at the library and I'm going to go through all of them again. Hope I'm not disappointed.

Reading Young Mungo, Douglas Stuart's sophmore book after Shuggie Bain. It reads very much like his first novel so if you didn't enjoy Shuggie Bain you should avoid it. I'm really happy with it so far, though.

Shaman's Crossing by Robin Hobb is an incredibly well written fantasy book. Excellent world building, character development and a fantastic plot. I can't wait to see where the story goes.

Robin Hobb's the best. Surprised tv/film studios aren't champing at the bit to use her stuff.

Great line from a great movie. Ryan Gosling was brilliant.

Lewis was 100% wrong when he said you can't transform BB/junk-rated assets into a AAA-structure. It undercuts many of his arguments in the book re: rating agencies and investors who bought them.

Again, this is inside baseball stuff. I'm sure nobody else cares.


'It's not leftover fish, it's today's fish soup!' RIP. Used to eat at Les Halles in the 90s when he was a nobody, lived around the corner.

What the what? That's like saying L. Ron is the best sci-fi author.



Wiseguy is the best non-fiction mafia book I've read.

I've enjoyed this book a lot and will jump into Farseer eventually.

Why is that? I've only read one book so far but I'm not seeing the comparison at all.

Does Lewis state this explicitly?

How can you make a AAA rated asset out of junk? (Assuming "AAA" has meaning. Wasn't one of the lessons of the debacle that ratings were meaningless?)

I checked this out on a whim and have read the first few pages. Not normally a genre I read, but this might really work for me, especially if she has read her James C. Scott and David Graeber.

I was not familiar with them so I had to look them up on Wikipedia, but it would not at all surprise me that she has read them.

People are rather nitty over what is considered a spoiler on this forum, so I'll spoil this just in case, if you're not overly concerned I'd recommend reading it.

My recollection is that the comment about AAA assets from below Investment grade debt was in reference to the ever exciting CDO squared deals, where the BB (and below) tranches of CDOs were themselves pooled into new deals, which then had full cap structures including AAA tranches.

I have no experience with how much excess subordination there was for the AAA CDO squared tranches, but based upon the motivations of the NRSROs at the time I’d be amazed if the quality was anywhere close to native AAAs.


Phat mack there is validity to the AAA Tranches to any securitized pool of cash flows, as they have first priority of payment from the pool - it’s all just a function of sizing.

Not reading yet, but I ordered The Cambridge Centenary Ulysses: The 1922 Text with Essays and Notes. Apparently, it weighs seven pounds.



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I'm proud of you. I'm too easily distracted by notes to go near it, but it should be fun.

The Forest Mage by Robin Hobb

She really went all out in some incredible ways. I imagine this book, and maybe even the entire series, would upset a lot of readers, but she does not seem to care. It is a pretty wild ride, and she manages to make some incredibly far fetched things seem totally believable. I think that this kind of a story requires that skill, which is probably why not many attempt it.

The character development is superb. The growth that many of Nevare's friends, families, and acquaintances go through is phenomenally well done. I think most impressive were some characters who I thought highly of and was disappointed by their later actions. I found myself wondering if they'd changed, or if Nevare just did not know them as well as I thought.

I'm really looking forward to the third book, can't even guess what's going to happen.

My casual reading had been slow-going of late, maybe a couple books a month, but a couple weeks ago I got into The Saxon Stories by Bernard Cornwell and am now half way through the sixth book. The Netflix show The Last Kingdom is based on the series, and I love the series, so thought I'd give them a try. They're historical fiction set in the reign of Alfred the Great (and immediately after his reign), with a fictional narrator but the majority of influential characters were real, as are most of the events. All about Saxons fighting Danes, and the very early emergence of modern England.

I enjoy the writing, although he gets a bit repetitive in his descriptions (running joke in the series' subreddit is how often the author informs the reader why one of his swords is better than the other in certain situations); his battle descriptions are particularly solid and paint a good picture.

I've always liked historical fiction (from the Killer Angels series, which is more towards the historical, the The Cold Six Thousand, which is more towards fiction) since they often lead me down rabbit holes of information beyond the books. I'd probably be done with all of the books by now if I wasn't spending so much time stopping to look stuff up on Wikipedia.

I read the first 3 and enjoyed them a lot.

My problem, also. I got stuck in a hotel with no internet and a copy of Lincoln Highway last fall and had the time of my life. I had forgotten what it is like to read without distraction.

Now everything has to be looked up online. If it turns out to be vaguely interesting, I look for an entire book to read about it. All my reading now consists of finding more things to read that will never get read.

And Lincoln highway wasn’t even that good of a book.

Agreed. Once Ulysses showed up, I thought it became readable.

America Again, the second book by Stephen Colbert. Or maybe his character from the Report. Meh. Might have been funnier back when it was written.

Relativity - The Special and the General Theory by Albert Einstein. It's his attempt to bring the theories to the layman. So far, he does a pretty good job--the little bit of math that's there is of high-school algebra level. Examples he gives to illustrate are accessible to the common person. Some focus needed, but it's not a slog by any means.

I don't hate myself for it, it helps me enjoy the books more by learning more about these folks. Cornwell does a good but very short "Historical Context" after each book where he gives a very high-level overview of what was "real" and what wasn't (e.g., "we know that a politically important woman was kidnapped and returned, but that it was so-and-so is my invention," or "we know a battle happened at this time with this significance, but it might not have been exactly where I located it).

Last weekend a friend had a few folks over to grill and one was an older gentleman from England. I asked where he was from and he asked me if I knew English geography at all, and I had to admit, "only circa 900 a.d. I've got Northumbria down pretty good."

The Russian Doll was a very solid thriller set among an oligarch's family in London, pretty timely.

Making my way through all the Inspector Morse novels.

Currently enjoying 'Master of Rain,' a mystery set in pre-war Shanghai.

Re-read Sailing to Sarantium, enjoyed it but not one of Kay's best. Lions of Al-Rassan re-read coming up soon, it's been a long time, and I seem to remember really enjoying that one a ton.

Yes.

It's trivial to do correctly. It's like asking a math PhD if he can do integrations. Every fixed income instrument is merely a collection of cash flows. The timing, tenor, and subordination give you the ratings spread.

You can make a legit AAA-tranche from 100 subprime 2p2 mortgage borrowers very easily if you think about it for ~30 seconds-5 mins.

Gave up on this about ~50% of the way through a few months ago.

Prior to reading, I didn’t know Gary Loveman’s history, so learning about the origins of Harrah’s Total Rewards was pretty fun (and likely of interest to folks who still browse 2p2 to scratch whatever that math/process/gambling itch is).

I think I lost interest after a few consecutive chapters were basically the same “hey what Apollo did was shady but ultimately legal per the letter of the law.” (Plus, you can find out “how it ends” by reading Wikipedia or having followed financial markets + related reporting at the time.)

Man I love Ted Chiang’s stuff. I only recently discovered him and I’ve tried to find + consume everything he’s written.

Lifecycle of Software Objects is probably my favorite of his (I also have the version containing his notes - great stuff). I also highly recommend “Anxiety is the Dizziness of Freedom” and “Story of Your Life” (the basis of the movie Arrival).