Perspective

"The Signal and the Noise - Why So Many Predictions Fail - But Some Don't" by Nate Silver is a non-fiction book about the world of predictions and forecasting. Also included in the book are episodes of Silver's real life experiences. He narrates the story. As a predictor, writer and statistician himself, no one could tell his story better.

Silver dabbled in forecasting and predictive models for many years. After deciding he wasn't made for an ordinary desk job at KPMG, Silver became a whiz kid on in-line poker sites and made a small fortune. His winnings were largely due to his ability to predict how his hand would play out and assess his opponent's hand and his ability to play it out. After he began to lose as much as he was winning, he went on to predict the performance of baseball players and then onto political...