Antifragile is a standalone book in Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s landmark Incerto series, an investigation of opacity, luck, uncertainty, probability, human error, risk, and decision-making in a world we don’t understand. The other books in the series are Fooled by Randomness, The Black Swan, Skin in the Game, and The Bed of Procrustes. Nassim Nicholas Taleb, the bestselling author of The Black Swan and one of the foremost thinkers of our time, reveals how to thrive in an uncertain world. Just as human bones get stronger when subjected to stress and tension, and rumors or riots intensify when someone tries to repress them, many things in life benefit from stress, disorder, volatility, and turmoil. What Taleb has identified and calls “antifragile” is that category of things that not only gain from chaos but need it in order to survive and flourish. In The Black Swan, Taleb showed us that highly improbable and unpredictable events underlie almost everything about our world. In Antifragile, Taleb stands uncertainty on its head, making it desirable, even necessary, and proposes that things be built in an antifragile manner. The antifragile is beyond the resilient or robust. The resilient resists shocks and stays the same; the antifragile gets better and better. Furthermore, the antifragile is immune to prediction errors and protected from adverse events. Why is the city-state better than the nation-state, why is debt bad for you, and why is what we call “efficient” not efficient at all? Why do government responses and social policies protect the strong and hurt the weak? Why should you write your resignation letter before even starting on the job? How did the sinking of the Titanic save lives? The book spans innovation by trial and error, life decisions, politics, urban planning, war, personal finance, economic systems, and medicine. And throughout, in addition to the street wisdom of Fat Tony of Brooklyn, the voices and recipes of ancient wisdom, from Roman, Greek, Semitic, and medieval sources, are loud and clear. Antifragile is a blueprint for living in a Black Swan world. Erudite, witty, and iconoclastic, Taleb’s message is revolutionary: The antifragile, and only the antifragile, will make it. Praise for Antifragile “Ambitious and thought-provoking . . . highly entertaining.”—The Economist “A bold book explaining how and why we should embrace uncertainty, randomness, and error . . . It may just change our lives.”—Newsweek

Biagio Mazzeo is the Chief Inspector of the Narcotics Division in a wealthy Northern Italian city known to cops and criminals alike as "The Jungle," where gangs of vicious Mafiosi from Southern Italy and from around the world control politics, the building sector, and the flourishing drugs and prostitution industries. Chief Inspector Biagio Mazzeo is also as crooked as they come. He leads a group of corrupt cops known as The Panthers, who, through an intricate system of shakedowns and intimidation, surreptitiously control the drug trade in The Jungle. But now Mazzeo has been caught. He and his "family" of Panthers have gone too far and it's landed him in jail. But an ambitious special agent from the National Crime Bureau, the ruthless and beautiful Irene Piscitelli, is willing to cut him a deal, one that will get him and the Panthers off the hook. All Mazzeo has to do is stop a mafia war of epic proportions that is about to explode. It is a suicide mission— Special Agent Piscitelli and Biagio Mazzeo both know it. But Mazzeo, a father figure to the gang of corrupt policemen he leads, would do anything to save them. In a gripping crescendo of violence, vendettas, and deep corruption, Biagio Mazzeo has to come to terms with his past mistakes while weaving a cunning plot that will save the lives of some of his men, and maybe even his own. The Night of the Panthers is an action filled police drama that will have readers' pulses racing.

Photographer Liam Wong’s debut monograph, a cyberpunk-inspired exploration of nocturnal Tokyo. Featuring evocative and stunning color photographs of contemporary Tokyo, this book brings together the images of an exciting new photographic talent, Liam Wong. Born and raised in Edinburgh, Scotland, Wong studied computer arts in college and, by the time he was twenty-five, was living in Canada and working as a director at one of the world’s leading video game companies. His job took him to Tokyo for the first time, where he discovered the ethereality of floating worlds and the lurid allure of Tokyo’s nocturnal scenes. “I got lost in the beauty of Tokyo at night,” he explains. A testament to the deep art of color composition, this publication brings together a refined body of images that are evocative, timeless, and completely transporting. This volume also features Wong’s creative and technical processes, including identifying the right scene, capturing the essence of a moment, and methods to enhance color values—insights that are invaluable to admirers and photography students alike.

Jason Carrillo came out to his basketball team senior year and lost his university scholarship. Now, with graduation behind him and summer ending, he's asked to speak at the opening of a gay and lesbian high school across the country. But after spending years in the closet and losing his scholarship dream, what message can he offer? Kyle Meeks is getting ready to go to Princeton in the fall and trying to see as much as possible of his boyfriend Jason before they have to separate. When Jason tells him about his speaking invitation, Kyle jumps at the chance to drive across country with him. Yet he can't help worrying: Will their romance survive two weeks crammed together in a car? Nelson Glassman is happy his best friend Kyle has found love with Jason. Now he's looking for his own true love -- and hopes he might find his soul mate during the road trip. But will being the "third wheel" in a trio ruin his friendships with Kyle and Jason? During an eye-opening postgraduation summer road trip, each of the three very different boys also embarks on a personal journey across a landscape of love, sexuality, homophobia, and above all, friendship.

In the author's point of view, a black swan is an improbable event with three principal characteristics - It is unpredictable; it carries a massive impact; and, after the fact, we concoct an explanation that makes it appear less random, and more predictable, than it was. Why do we not acknowledge the phenomenon of black swans until after they occur? Part of the answer, according to Taleb, is that humans are hardwired to learn specifics when they should be focused on generalities. We concentrate on things we already know and time and time again fail to take into consideration what we don't know. We are, therefore, unable to truly estimate opportunities, too vulnerable to the impulse to simplify, narrate, and categorize, and not open enough to rewarding those who can imagine the 'impossible'.