Rating: 
Summary: Fooled by Amazon
Review: Sometimes it serves no purpose to look at the rating of the book (4 average stars), it is as misleading as the closing price in terms of understanding future profitability. The book full of hackneyed examples and anecdotes culled (maybe plagiarized) from better pop-science books. Berstein's Against the Gods is more entertaining, J Allen Paulos is more original, and R. Dawkins is far more erudite.
In his book Dr. Taleb makes much of his love of books, and his foreign (non-US) education. Yet Taleb's book was published by some no-name (vanity?) publisher, Texere, which apparently does not have enough money to hire an editor, nor even a simple fact-checker. Perhaps the brilliant Dr. Taleb don't need no friggin' fact-checker? Well...Barnes & Noble is on 18th street, not 21st street. This might seem like a small detail, but Taleb's book uses that mistake as a chapter sub-heading and it is just a simple example of sloppy editing. I will not even start on the lack of style and wit throughout the book.
Of course, I did not expect any heavy math in this book, I have enough of that in my day job (insurance), but I did expect something more than this limp treatment of statistical reasoning in business life. But one should bear in mind that Taleb is simply a (Phoenician) trader who believes he has something interesting to say simply because he has an above-average income. He is fooled by skewness.
Rating: 
Summary: Mostly Egocentric, Always brilliant
Review: One can witness the self-infatuated soul who, in spite of what one can expect, be incisive and insightful to the point of seeing things others don't see. I wish TAleb couldn't be a litle more humble but I guess one can't be everything.
Entertaining. I could not put it down. I am convinced that the author is an egocentric fellow but with a funny attitude problem; one got to give him that he goes miles beyond other people in introspection. Bravo! Gutsy, Insightful, intelligent, and funny.
Rating: 
Summary: Mundane
Review: If you are a quant you might find this a little slow. Some interesting ideas from a Behavioral finance perspective, but it lacks rigor. Other than lack of rigor it is a fun book to read. It has interesting examples of anomalies in rational behavior. Nassim thinks he is this great thinker, but I agree with other reviewers that he needs to work out a few more things before he gets there!
Rating:
Summary: Not a new idea, not well written, but very ironical.
Review: While reading this book I kept wondering why it was published. It seemed like a vanity publishing job. Taleb does not present any new ideas, nor does he add to their understanding by novel examples. It reads mostly like a musings taken from someone's journal - barely fleshed out ideas. When Taleb sticks to examples of randomness in markets, the book is okay and the examples elucidate the ideas relatively well. I would have given it three stars for this positive aspect alone. But, he feels compelled to apply his framework to other parts of life. It is a stretch and his arguments are very, very thin. It's more like he is trying to justify his dislike of certain people with thinking that sounds rational, mathematical or scientific. He abuses all those terms regularly.What stands out most about this book is the author's barest (I could hardly find it) recognition of the irony of his position. He dwells on survivorship bias in statisitical inference - that the the successful traders (or fund managers) in a sample do not reflect the true performance, or risk, for we are not accounting for all those who failed (and thus are not in the sample for moving on to other jobs). Random simulation can produce a group of winners (or survivors) over a number of years. That is, pure chance can be produce results that mirror actual observations of performance of a group of traders over time. Taleb calls succesful traders (those who survive in the business) "lucky fools" when they disagree with his his trading style or philosophy. Yet he fails to recognize, by his own arguments and examples, that he is part of this set of survivors and is just as much a lucky fool. That is, he gets to write this book because he is a successful trader (he hasn't "blown up" and been forced out of the business, yet..), but his own success can be assigned to chance. Lucky fool. In short, nothing in this book can help you as a trader. All you will learn is that if you are a lucky fool, then you should be humble and recognize that you are unlikely to know why are you are succesful and when you will "blow up." It's the only consistent argument in the book.
Rating: 
Summary: Simple message
Review: For all its elegant prose and unwelcome insights into the author's personality, Fooled By Randomness has a simple message at its core: Do not confuse the unlikely event with the impossible event, or, approximately in other words, the Black Swan theory. Indeed, blowups in financial markets are not as rare as they seem and they wreck disproportionate damage. Also, do not discount the role of luck in the financial market or in other spheres of life. The book is almost semi-autobiographical in nature. Taleb writes very well and makes references to diverse intellectual arenas and personalities. He also provides insightful examples to illuminate the points he is making. He would likely provide excellent company if one were in the mood to ruminate about the markets or the role of chance in our lives. The book is an interesting and worthwhile read, and this reader highly recommends it.
Rating:
Summary: snobby but interesting
Review: I agree with other reviewers who describe the author as self-centered, but I got the impression he *is* much smarter than the people he criticizes, such as the "lucky" traders he's known. I think the book is a rant, but it is very interesting. The best new insight I got from it is that no one is immune to randomness. I am an aggressive investor, using stock mutual funds and stocks that I buy and hold. My investment philosophy is built on the knowledge that stocks have outperformed all other investments in any 15-year period over most of the last 100 years. Taleb reminds me that this does not guarantee that stocks will outperform over the next 15 years. What I haven't figured out yet is how to incorporate his hedging against rare random events into my style of investing.
Rating:
Summary: Humbling Insights
Review: Dr Taleb's book for the layman explains, using understantable logic and mathematics, how much success commonly attributed to skill is really luck. It should be humbling to the wealthy, and reassuring to the unlucky. A useful read for investors: Studies show that over-confidence degrades trading performance. We need to be continuously objective about our approaches and conclusions. Gift this book to your most arrogant lucky friend!
Rating:
Summary: Great Fun
Review: Taleb manages to breathe life into a lot of abstract ideas by using his own idiosyncracies or those of other people to illustrate how prone we all are to mistakes in this maddeningly random world. Easy to read & a wealth of sharp points.
Rating:
Summary: Worthwhile
Review: I don't know why I am writing this now, but I have had the book for some time and I have read it twice, that being an indication that it was enjoyable. That's what it is: Fun to read. Don't get it if you want ideas, strategies, insights into Empirica's positions, or anything resembling the preponderance of "How to get killer abs and rich in 7 days" books that are out there now..... it is not a how to, plug numbers into the formula, cookbook. It is really just an off-the-cuff exposition/narrative/essay based on his experiences. It is entirely subjective and, I am quite sure, offensive to some (which makes it highly entertaining, particularly if you are part of the culture). It makes you think a bit more objectively about times when you thought that your wit, charm, and charisma got you desired results and begs the question, "Was I just a lucky idiot and would the same approach yield a different outcome given similar conditions?" Its only shortcoming was the apparent lack of an editor - in the quest for eloquence sometimes the writing becomes overly verbose, cluttered, and halting.
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant and Thought Provoking
Review: An witty, easy read for financiers and mathematicians, as well as the uninitiated. Taleb turns the world on its head, or at least markets, in that we do not take account for the rare events - the so called black swans. It is up to the reader to figure out how to benefit from the brilliant insights.
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