THE 2011 READING LIST
JANUARY
1 Mr. White’s Confession
Robert Clark
fiction
2 All the King’s Men
Robert Penn Warren
fiction
FEBRUARY
3 Eats, Shoots &
Leaves: The Zero
Tolerance Approach to
Punctuation
Lynne Truss
nonfiction
4 In the Woods
Tana French
fiction
MARCH
5 Men and the
Matterhorn
Gaston Rebuffat
nonfiction
6 Letters From a Skeptic:
A Son Wrestles With
His Father’s Questions
About Christianity
Dr. Gregory A. Boyd,
Edward Boyd
nonfiction
APRIL
7 The Kings and Queens
of England and Scotland
Plantagenet Somerset
Fry
nonfiction
8 Elizabeth and Mary:
Cousins, Rivals, Queens
Jane Dunn
nonfiction
MAY
9 Caligula and Three
Other Plays
Albert Camus
drama
10 An Object of Beauty
Steve Martin
fiction
JUNE
11 Dimensions of Time:
The Structures of the
Time of Humans, of the
World, and of God
Wolfgang Achtner,
Stefan Kunz, Thomas
Walter
nonfiction
12 Four Great Russian
Plays
Anton Chekhov, Nikolay
Gogol, Ivan Turgenev,
Maxim Gorky
drama
JULY
13 Pop Goes the Weasel
James Patterson
fiction
14 The Blind Assassin
Margaret Atwood
fiction
AUGUST
15 Our Lady of Pain
Elena Forbes
fiction
16 The Man From St.
Petersburg
Ken Follett
fiction
SEPTEMBER
17 Trumpeting by Nature:
An Efficient Guide
to Optimal Trumpet
Performance
Jeanna G. Pocius
nonfiction
18 American Tabloid
James Ellroy
fiction
OCTOBER
19 State of Fear
Michael Crichton
fiction
20 Day of Confession
Allan Folsom
fiction
NOVEMBER
21 How to Write a Mystery
Larry Beinhart
nonfiction
22 Our Kind of Traitor
John le Carré
fiction
DECEMBER
23 Math and the Mona
Lisa: The Art and
Science of Leonardo da
Vinci
Bülent Atalay
nonfiction
24 Dark Places
Gillian Flynn
fiction
appealed to me. Authors I used to love I no longer enjoyed. As
actuaries, we should periodically revisit old methods, models,
or approaches and look at them in a new light. Perhaps years
of experience will yield a different perspective or inspire new
thinking. Regarding the latter, I found that actuarial discipline
and persistency paid off in unexpected ways. One of the books
I read was an indecipherably dense tome on the dimensions of
time. The fact that it was only 180 pages long was deceiving, especially when it contained texts such as: “In conclusion we can
say that the mythic consciousness fluctuated cyclically back and
forth between an endangering dissolution into a symbiotic un-differentiation and a weakly distinctive temporal permanence.”
Tough stuff. But my actuarial study habits of marking up text
and taking notes was (largely) successful in helping me make
headway with respect to comprehension. What was at first indecipherable grew more understandable with each pass. In the
end, the most challenging book was the most rewarding and
imparted the most knowledge.
The actuarial lesson here is that we shouldn’t shy away from
difficult things. Pushing yourself, personally and professionally,
is ultimately very rewarding. I was pleased to observe that when
I applied the discipline from my actuarial background to my
reading project, it benefited me as an actuary. It became in es-
sence the ultimate feedback loop!
The Moral of My Story
What’s the moral of this story (other than that I read a lot of
stories)? It was a revelation to me that so much of what I experienced during my 2011 reading project caused me to think,
“There is a work-related aspect to this.” My actuarial training
gave me the discipline to complete my New Year’s resolution
successfully, and, in the end, I benefited from the experience.
Will reading a lot of books automatically make you a better
actuary? I can’t guarantee that, but you never know from where
your next eureka moment will come, and I encourage the process of exploration.
As for me, I plan to keep on reading. Alas, my briefly vacant
nightstand is now buried under 24 new books. BBD strikes
again! I’m incurable.
JEFF SCHUH, a fellow of the society of actuaries and a
member of the academy, is vice president and actuary u.s.
group reinsurance at rga reinsurance Co. in Minneapolis. He
invites you to visit his linkedIn page to view his complete
reading list and comments.
JAN | FEB. 13 CONTINGENCIES 29
