Jamie O'Neill: At Swim, Two Boys

Spin (i just finished it--really good, recommended by Hayden and others online), or American Gods, which Randall got for me from my wishlist just yesterday.

Ah, I've read American Gods already (it is good though)

How about something by John Le Carre? I just started reading Absolute Friends, and since a movie based on one of his books is up for a few Oscars (The Constant Gardner) it'll be sorta timely.

Is non-fiction allowed?

If nonfiction, I'm reading Annals of the Former World, Life's Devices, and The Fate of Africa.

If nonfiction, I'm reading Annals of the Former World

John Mcphee+++. Every time he writes about a place, I find myself wanting to go there.

Pine Barrens is the shit. (And a hell of a lot shorter than Annals.

Oh, wait. You were making a "long books" joke, weren't you?

if non-fiction, i vote The Cheese and the Worms

or something weightier, like this (which i've wanted to read for a while: A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia/Deleuze & Guattari

What was that book about the MIT students gambling in Las Vegas that was recommended in the earlier thread? Too lazy to research.

One nomination a piece, please. Fiction OR non-, I don't care. But I can't keep track of your nominations as they are.

Please remember, you are nominating a book you want to read, not that you have already read. Also, nothing not available in paperback at present. And please provide a link to the book+description (truncate the referrer crap if using Amazon.com).

So, Take 2. Please post your FINAL nominations below.

Previous nominations 1* 2.

*Rules are here.

No book gets an auto-nomination this month because there were only four votes last time.

"Oh, wait. You were making a "long books" joke, weren't you?"

Nope.

Jamie O'Neill: At Swim, Two Boys

The first book about clocking (detecting statistical bias by long observation) roulette was Alan N. Wilson's The Casino Gambler's Guide. He was a CalTech student. The recent exploit by MIT students essentially duplicated Wilson's methods. Wilson also anticipated Thorp's card counting at blackjack, but could not extend his results sufficiently to operationalize it.

Thorp is the guy for mathematical analysis of gambling. He also invented arbitraging, hedge funds and a host of other wonderful things.

The Eudaemonic Pie by Thomas A. Bass describe the birth of the Santa Cruz school of dynamic systems (aka chaos) theory and the efforts to beat roulette by operationalizing a method developed by Ed Thorp and Claude Shannon for using very accurate stopwatches to predict and bet in the brief time between when the ball is thrown and the betting is closed (only allowed in American casinos.)