is probably my favourite comic book of all time (or graphic novel as they are now known, though whats wrong with comic, it is after all comic). In fact I originally named the blog the extraordinary league of gentlemen readers, but I thought it was bit wordy for the Internet. This fantastic comic, as is par for course,was made into an incredibly bad movie. If I was Alan Moore (writer of the WATCHMEN), this sort butchery of my artistic vision would probably drive me to near insanity, until I bought another Lamborghini, and I assuaged my artistic soul. Unfortunately Moore probably lacks my base materialism and this would explain his appearance, see the following for Moores feelings on Comic Book Movies www.totalfilm.com/features/exclusive-why-alan-moore-hates-comic-book-movies. Anyway enough of the artistic graveyard which is Hollywood. Moores inspired idea is to take the Victorian Eras greatest superheroes and forming them into a Superhero group. This book is pitch perfect written in the style of a 19th century "penny dreadful" it's witty, it's clever, and packed with daring do. The story begins with our heroes all a little down on their luck. Quatermain (the hero of H. Rider Haggards novelsKing Solomon's Mines (Modern Library Classics)
is found in an opium den, Griffin ( The Invisible Man
) is making the most of powers at an all girls school, and Mr Hyde (Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
) is about to get butchered by a mob. Recruited by M,the head of the heroes must make battle with a mysterious east end villain. A jolly adventure ensues which will leave you wanting more, luckily for us there is more, as the adventurers reunite in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Vol. 2
by Rajeev Shah is hot off the press (2011) and already almost completely useless. Or to be more specific it's almost completely useless if you have already read anything about betting sports arbitrage. Instead of buying this I recommend you the read wikipedias article on the same topic http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbitrage_betting its a page long and more comprehensive, you'll save yourself 113 pages and $30. Shah does give some useful sites you can use to try and get some arb oportunities. The only problem is if you actually want to use any of them you'll find without an arbitrage software package that you are too slow and the arbs have already closed. Sports Betting Arbitrage can be highly profitable and is essentially riskless and if you are a complete newbie it maybe worth ppurchasing this book to guide you through.
Bergens an old pal of Osama don't you know, go way back. Bergen in 1997 had a chat and a nice cup of tea with Osama and ever since then hes made a career out of it. He has written many books on the subject of Terrorism and heres another one. Again illustrating the importance of timing in the book game, this will now have to be reprinted as "The Osama I knew."
Bernard Lewis called it a "A magnificent piece of eloquent, at times even poetic Arabic prose ... in devising strategies to fight the terrorists, it would be useful to understand the forces that drive them." So obviously he was impressed, and you can impress your friends too when you regurgitate "The Churchill of the Middle East" many moving speeches.
a bit of gambling classic, written in the summer of 1966 its the true story of how Norman Leigh lead a team of handpicked gamblers (He screened over 900 applicants) against the Casino Municipale roulette tables in Nice. The team ending up breaking the bank several times, and Leigh made himself a small fortune. In the process they were stopped from playing by the police and were banned for life from the casinos of Nice. Leigh used a system know as the Reverse Labouchere betting progression, the details of which are laid out in the book. The story is true, and if you are convinced by the credibilty of the system it could still be used in Casinos today. The best thing though I found about the book is its a lively tale, full of suspense, with a bit of an oceans 11 feel. On the downside it leaves you wanting to get your gamble on. 
was a bestseller I would say at least most people have a love hate relationship with this kind of figure. Probably along the lines hate them nicking your money but would love to, as the blurb says, party like a rock star, live like a king. And Belfort certainly did that. I for one admire a man who embraces his own nature and runs with it, damn the apologies He's also a good example of how short of extermination / life imprisonment its difficult to hold these types down for long, From ruining companies to run away business success Belfort just keeps making money. Even Federal Charges haven't held him down for long, after ratting all his friends and associates, he segued into making another fortune refinancing home loans helping (covered in 
) so that people could buy that 2nd 50inch flat screen. He has now remade himself of course as a SELF IMPROVEMENT GURU! Belfort seems to have particular skill for finding the most reviled industry of the time, and thriving in them. This is probably also because that's where the money is. Which brings us to Central Tale of The Wolf of Wall Street the company he set up Stratton Oakmont Basically Stratton Oakmont was a pump and dump boiler room. Which is where you own a large block of shares in a company which is worthless, you hire a bunch of chaps to give the hard sell to your marks, ramp up the price, sell out , and then watch the company crater
Which has a similar protaganist, who whilst like Belfort, lacked even his small scruples, in fact he positively revels in stealing people cash, he also gets wrapped up with the MAFIA, so good if you like that genre
, Ben Macintyre tells a tale which sounds straight out of Kipling, not surprising as Kipling drew his inspiraton for 
from this real life story. The tale goes something like this boy meets girls, gets the shaft, decides bugger this, bugger America lets take over a country and let the fun begin. Harlan makes a pretty good attempt of it too, disguising himself as a Muslim holy man, connives his way to Kabul, recruits mercenaries and gets himself crowned king, for a while anyway. I'm a big fan of Macintyre, in particular I also enjoyed 
which is the movie of the Kipling tale. Its a damn good film
, the story of a gambler who takes on the bookmakers and wins consistently is one of the most enthralling books that has been written on the subject. This is the true story of how Micheal Konik a sports and gambling writer gets recruited as a shill better for a secret betting syndicate known as the Brain Trust, headed by rick"BIG DADDY" Mathews. It follows Konik as he places increasingly larges sums for the syndicate, pockets big cash, has threesomes and generally enjoys the comped Las Vegas Life. Konik starts to wear under the pressure of the life, getting money out of bookies ain't always easy. But in the end Konik definitely gets the best of it, learning enough to start his own gambling syndicate. A great book, totally and entertaining and informative enough to encourage you to blow your paper thinking you can be the SMART MONEY
which traces the formulation of the Kelly criterion .Which if you don't at least know about, you probably shouldn't be gambling / investing (Whats the dif?) at all. This book includes tales of MIT mathematics professor Ed Thorp who earned a small Vegas fortune by "counting cards" then wrote about it in 
, this was followed by teaming up with Claude Shannon the father of information theory to take on the Roulette tables. Again an interesting book about modern gambling pioneers who actually have managed to play and win