Gerald Durrell. He lived a most unusual life and was surrounded by a larger than life family.
Its the only time I’ve read a biography twice
Are you referring to his tax-avoidance trips to France, him pursuing a friends wife, or is there something else yet to come?
I think the memorable part for me (It was many years ago I read it) was the part where he explained teh ethos of his budding empire where “Everyone in the company got paid £20 per week”.
BUT he managed to run a Rolls Royce off his £20 a week.
I seem to remember something about LPs being imported from soewhere without tax being paid - but I don’t specifically remember whether that was Avoidance or Evasion.
However as I said it was a long time ago that I read it and I could be wrong (except, I think on the “Rolls Royce”)
In fairness, the car (an old Bentley) was a wedding present from his parents.
Its surprising how much he ran the business in the early days almost as a hobby with no real accounting. More like a hippy commune than a business 
That and the exploits in the phone boxes as a Schoolboy point to his undoubted mastery of “Image management”
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excellent book was the first one I read when I started in this forex world
new book as of today:
Practical Speculation by Victork Niederhoffer
Niederhoffer is said to be the father of the statisctical arbibtrage technique
edit: after reading the first 2 chapters i must add that this book might not add anything usefull to my career/trading but that it is A MUST READ FOR ANY CURRENCY RETAIL TRADER AND ESPECIALLY BEGINNER even before you start to learn technical analysis or even make a first demo trade.
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I am in the mood for some historical fiction. Can anyone recommend me anything?
here you go
Finished Bransons book now, mixed feelings about it.
The majority of it was excellent, interesting and amusing.
However, I felt it became a bit muddled in the last few chapters and lost some structure. Possibly understandable given that he had so much happening business wise.
I also got a slight impression that the later chapters were close to becoming “How I saved the world”, but that may be down to his enthusiasm for some of the things he was/is doing.
Still well worth a read, and I will get his recently published follow to this.
When he started Virgin Atlantic, everything else in the Virgin Group appeared to take a backseat.
That Janet Jackson signing was a herculean effort in itself… The licensing flight without Insurance and detonating $600,000 worth of Jet Engine would have been gut wrenching…
The way he explained purchasing aircraft from Boeing, fitting the latest seats, ticketing systems, airport space… sounded so blasie… like starting a hire car company…
Once he started fighting with BA the storytelling speed up and lost structure at that point…
The new book’s not as good a read…as the original…
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I was hoping for something more grounded in reality, but I actually like fantasy too, so why not.
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I really love fiction, especially fantasy. I’ve recently read the book series " A Witcher" written by Andrzej Sapkowski.
read the tavistock institute of human relations by john coleman. The book is over $1,000 on amazon and even more on other sites lol I have the free pdf version if anyone is interested. It’ll open some eyes best believe.
Interesting - I think it’s free on Kindle - isn’t it ?
Interesting. I’ve read a little of that now and whilst I recognise some of the stuff as being probable, It brings up the question I always struggle with around these things – WHY ? - The book may go on to answer that question, I don’t know yet.
There is a reference to “Beatrice and Sidney Webb” - Beatrice is quite an interesting lady and some may not be aware that she was an Evangelising Socialist, and that this couple were campaigners for "The Welfare STate " which came into force in Uk - but not until after they both died. They also founded the “London SChool of Economics” “to further the aims of Socialism”
Beatrice Webb - May be better know to most of us and wearing a somewhat different hat - as - Beatrix Potter !
- Yes she of “Fluffy Bunny” type of childrens books ! (Just thought I’d mention that as the book doesn’t - lol
So how did you rate it then ?
I like a bit of the old conspiracy stuff - and he is certainly a great speaker !
Interesting observations about Aldous Huxley and George Orwell !
Well, Im about 20% into Gerald Durrells biography. Excellent read but its ruined any enjoyment of the TV programme as, in true TV style, the programme episodes are so far from the truth its annoying.
Trading Chaos (Bill Williams), Trade Your Way to Financial Freedom (Van K. Tharp), Master Trading. The X-Files (Eric Naiman). And this is not the whole list of books that I’ve read and that helped me to make myself better in trading.