I slogged through The Black Swan with the same attitude. He had some good insights, but he was so pompous I had difficulty following his reasoning. I'd continually get derailed when I encountered something that I thought was pure self-promotion.
Be proud all you want. Just be able to explain your idea clearly. Taleb intersperses self-promotion in his explanations, which muddies them.
His writing style in general is meandering and lacks focus. The book I read had a handful of insights amid pointless narration. I read books like The Black Swan to learn new ideas, not to learn how great the author is.
Totally agree - pompous. That's the word I was looking for. The kind of author who creates a fictional character based 100% on himself, makes said character the intellectual and professional superior to his peers, the only one who survives the ups and downs of the market; and to top it all off names the character Nero! Seriously!
I found that "When Genius Failed" gives a great story-telling journalistic perspective on some of the same incidents Taleb talks about in his book while "The Drunkard's Walk" provides a good mathematical intuition (sans math sadly) behind seemingly rare events.
