Nassim Nicholas Taleb – Anti-Fragile book review

In a nutshell (426 pages), this is the 4th of 5 books in the Incerto series by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. The focus of this book is, as the title suggests, what it means to be anti-fragile, and how to become anti-fragile. It is important to understand, however, is that anti-fragile means it gets stronger from stressors, not that it withstands it.

What I got out of it

Anti-fragility is not an obvious concept, but as with most of Taleb’s work it’s incredibly smart. That doesn’t mean it’s easy but the book does a great job of spelling out exactly what it means to become anti-fragile and how to become anti-fragile. The book, written in his typical style, is really fun to read and it’s pretty funny.

What was difficult

The only difficulty of the book is the fact that it’s not obvious how to make things in your life anti-fragile, and many things will never be anti-fragile, they can’t. But the book does show where you can and gives great examples to illustrate the point.

Recommendation

Everyone should read this book, even if you don’t enjoy non-fiction, you will still find the book easy to read (he uses fictional characters to make some of his points). If the book upsets you, you should probably take a deeper look at how you’re living your life. Taleb clearly cares a lot about people and has no patience for the people who make life more difficult for others for personal gain.