My bookshelf·Index No. 0250

Odds Against Tomorrow

Nathaniel Rich·Picador·2013·320 pages
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Mitchell Zukor is a young math genius hired by a Manhattan firm called FutureWorld that sells corporations worst-case scenarios — for a fee, they calculate your catastrophic exposure and indemnify you against being sued for not foreseeing it. Mitchell is very good at this and privately terrified all the time. Then a hurricane floods New York exactly as he predicted, and he becomes a prophet in a drowned city, paddling a canoe through the streets. Rich published it months before Sandy, which made the reception strange, and the satire of risk as a business is sharper than the disaster.

Odds Against Tomorrow
By Nathaniel Rich. Picador, 2013. 320 pages.