The upside of Irrationality by Dan Ariely
amazon: 4 star
The No Asshole Rule by Bob Sutton
amazon: 4+ star
Good Boss, Bad Boss by Bob Sutton
amazon: 4+ star
Sleights of Mind: What the Neuroscience of Magic Reveals about Our Everyday Deceptions by Stephen L. Macknik, Susana Martinez-Conde, Sandra Blakeslee
amazon: 5 star (1 review) illustrations are important
Born to Run by Christopher Mcdougall (Author)
amazon: 4+ stars
Influence by Robert B. Cialdini (Author)
amazon: 4+ stars
Think Twice: Harnessing the Power of Counterintuition by Michael J. Mauboussin
amazon: 4+ stars
Blind Spots: Why Smart People Do Dumb Things by Madeleine L. Van Hecke
amazon:4+ stars
no audio; sounded shallow to Robin
The Watercooler Effect: An Indispensable Guide to Understanding and Harnessing the Power of Rumors by Nicholas DiFonzo
amazon: 3+ (small number of reviews)
no audio version
Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me) by Carol Tavris
amazon: 4+ stars
Buy, Buy Baby: How Consumer Culture Manipulates Parents and Harms Young Minds by Susan Gregory Thomas
amazon: 4+stars
Delusions of Gender: How Our Minds, Society, and Neurosexism Create Difference by Cordelia Fine
amazon: 4 stars
no audio version
Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things [Hardcover]
by Randy O. Frost, Gail Steketee
amazon: 4+ stars
Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition, and Health, Revised and Expanded Edition (California Studies in Food and Culture) [Paperback]
amazon: 4 stars
described a dull writing by several reviewers; no kindle edition
The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values
Sam Harris
amazon: 4+ stars
Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation
Steven Johnson
amazon: 4 stars
The Honor Code: How Moral Revolutions Happen
Kwame Anthony Appiah
amazon: 5 stars (based on 3 reviews)
no audio version
The Power of Positive Deviance: How Unlikely Innovators Solve the World's Toughest Problems
Richard Pascale , Jerry Sternin , Monique Sternin
amazon: 5 stars (based on 5 reviews)
no audio version
The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies (New Edition)
Bryan Caplan
amazon: 3+ stars
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The upside of Irrationality by Dan Ariely
4.1 stars based on 77 reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Ariely (Predictably Irrational) expands his research on behavioral economics to offer a more positive and personal take on human irrationality's implications for life, business, and public policy. After a youthful accident left him badly scarred and facing grueling physical therapy, Ariely's treatment required him to accept temporary pain for long-term benefit—a trade-off so antithetical to normal human behavior that it sparked the author's fascination with why we consistently fail to act in our own best interest. The author, professor of behavioral economics at Duke, leads us through experiments that reveals such idiosyncrasies as the IKEA effect (if you build something, pride and sentimental attachment are likely to give you an inflated sense of its quality) and the Baby Jessica effect (why we respond to one person's suffering but not to the suffering of many). He concludes with prescriptions for how to make real personal and societal changes, and what behavioral patterns we must identify to improve how we love, live, work, innovate, manage, and govern. Self-deprecating humor, an enthusiasm for human eccentricities, and an affable and snappy style make this read an enriching and eye-opening pleasure. (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
In Predictably Irrational (2008), Ariely explored the reasons why human beings frequently put aside common sense and why bad things often happen when they do. Here, in this equally entertaining and clever follow-up, Ariely shows us the other side of the irrationality coin: the beneficial outcomes and pleasant surprises that often arise from irrational behavior. Although pleasant should be taken as a relative term, since the outcomes are not necessarily pleasant for the person who was behaving irrationally. Take, for example, Thomas Edison’s obsession with DC current, and his irrational hatred of AC: trying to prove how dangerous AC was, he inadvertently—with his development of the electric chair—demonstrated to the world how powerful it could be. Ariely is an engaging and efficient writer, amusing us with stories about irrational behavior while staying away from needless technical terminology and bafflegab. Thought-provoking, entertaining, and smart: a winning combination. --David Pitt
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The No Asshole Rule by Bob Sutton
4.4 stars based on 146 reviews
(hardcover, paperback, kindle, audio)
From Publishers Weekly
This meticulously researched book, which grew from a much buzzed-about article in the Harvard Business Review, puts into plain language an undeniable fact: the modern workplace is beset with assholes. Sutton (Weird Ideas that Work), a professor of management science at Stanford University, argues that assholes—those who deliberately make co-workers feel bad about themselves and who focus their aggression on the less powerful—poison the work environment, decrease productivity, induce qualified employees to quit and therefore are detrimental to businesses, regardless of their individual effectiveness. He also makes the solution plain: they have to go. Direct and punchy, Sutton uses accessible language and a bevy of examples to make his case, providing tests to determine if you are an asshole (and if so, advice for how to self-correct), a how-to guide to surviving environments where assholes freely roam and a carefully calibrated measure, the "Total Cost of Assholes," by which corporations can assess the damage. Although occasionally campy and glib, Sutton's work is sure to generate discussions at watercoolers around the country and deserves influence in corporate hiring and firing strategies.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
From Booklist
We all know them or know of them--the jerks and bullies at work who demean, criticize, and sap the energy of others, usually their underlings. It could be the notorious bad boss or the jealous coworker, but everyone agrees that they make life miserable for their victims and create a hostile and emotionally stifling environment. Fed up with how these creeps treat others and poison the workplace, Sutton declares war and comes out calling them exactly what they are--"certified assholes." Caricatured in sitcoms such as The Office, these brutes are too often tolerated until irreparable damage is done to individuals and the organization as a whole. Sutton's "no asshole rule" puts a stop to the abuse in no uncertain terms. Similar rules have transformed such companies as JetBlue, the Men's Wearhouse, and Google into shining examples of workplaces where positive self-esteem creates a more productive, motivated, and satisfied workforce. If you have ever been a victim, just reading Sutton's analysis brings calm relief, empowerment, and reassurance that you're not alone. David Siegfried
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
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Good Boss, Bad Boss by Bob Sutton
4.6 stars based on 23 reviews
(hardcover, kindle, audio)
From Publishers Weekly
Want to be a better boss? Unaware that you're a terrible one? Sutton (The No Asshole Rule) is here to help. The cost of callous and cruel superiors is considerable: employees with an abusive boss are more likely to work slowly, make deliberate errors, and even suffer heart attacks. With examples from such diverse workplaces as Pixar and Anchor Steam brewery, Sutton reveals how the best bosses take diverse and intertwined steps to create effective and humane workplaces, and offers tips on taking control, getting and giving credit appropriately, taking responsibility, staying in tune with employees, and squelching your potential inner jerk. Using real-life examples and insight gleaned from 30 years of experience as a manager, Sutton teaches his readers to become the boss employees enthusiastically want to work for. This entertaining, satisfying guide is a wakeup call for bosses everywhere--and a survival guide for those who work for them. (Sept.) (c)
Copyright © PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Review
I loved this book - immediately my favorite business book. There are so many great principles and ideas to live up to, backed up by real data - it should be every boss' responsibility to read and understand it. (John Lilly, CEO of Mozilla Corporation, producer of the Firefox web browser )
Good Boss, Bad Boss does a wonderful job of challenging conventional wisdom while outlining a clear and compelling rationale for thinking differently. From Sutton's useful steps for getting "in tune" with what it feels like to work for you, to evidence that eliminating the negative is more powerful than accentuating the positive, to the importance of demonstrating confidence with the admission that you're not always right. Good Boss, Bad Boss teaches the art and the science of practical leadership for the 21st century. I would consider it a must-read for anyone looking to improve their impact and accelerate their desired outcomes. (Brad Smith, CEO of Intuit )
This book is the personal coach that every boss deserves: warm, smart, and freakishly good at translating scientific research into practical tips that will help keep you at the top of your game. (Chip & Dan Heath, authors of Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard )
We are damned lucky to have Bob Sutton. While his every word is backed up by significant research, he writes in simple sentences that make enormous sense. Typical in this book, Sutton's little chart in Chapter 3, 'Smart Versus Wise Bosses,' is worth, all by itself, 100 times the price of admission. Good Boss, Bad Boss is as good as it gets. (Tom Peters, author of The Little Big Things and co-author of In Search of Excellence )
It has been damn near impossible to find consistently good and objective insight and analysis from business thought leaders. But Robert I. Sutton, a professor of Management Science and Engineering at Stanford and the Stanford Institute of Design (where we have overlapped), is an exception. His new book, out now, is his best to date. Good Boss, Bad Boss is food for thought for managers and leaders in organizations large and small. It is packed with insight, lists of "how to" suggestions, and questions for bosses to ask themselves. (Reuters )
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Sleights of Mind: What the Neuroscience of Magic Reveals about Our Everyday Deceptions by Stephen L. Macknik (Author), Susana Martinez-Conde (Author), Sandra Blakeslee (Author)
No user reviews
(hardcover, kindle, audio)
"Magic is the place where our senses and beliefs fail us in magnificent ways. In this exciting book Stephen, Susana, and Sandra explore what magic and illusions can teach us about our fallible human nature—coming up with novel and fascinating observations."—Dan Ariely, author of Predictability Irrational
"Steve and Susana are two of the most innovative scientists I know. They aren't content to just conduct elegant experiments (although they do plenty of those, too). Instead, they're determined to explore those places where neuroscience intersects the mysterious and the magical, from visual illusions to Vegas card tricks. This book doesn't just change the way you think about sleight of hand and David Copperfield - it will also change the way you think about the mind."—Jonah Lehrer, author of How We Decide and Proust Was A Neuroscientist.
"I've long wished that there was a book that explained the art of magic from the point of view of cognitive neuroscience. Magic is a goldmine of information about the brain, as well as a source of fascination to laypeople. This is the book we've all been waiting for."—Steven Pinker PhD, author of The Stuff of Thought
"This is a highly original book. Science and magic have much in common. They both take seemingly inexplicable events and provide elegantly simple answers that enthrall the observer. The authors have done an admirable job in exploring this idea and also suggest ways in which the two disciplines can cross fertilize each other."—VS Ramachandran MD PhD, author of Phantoms in the Brain
"Stephen Macknik and Susana Martinez-Conde's Sleights of Mind gives non-magicians a real up-close look at the true secrets of magic. They are revealing the real knowledge jealously guarded by all great performers...I know my fellow magicians are all going to be as jazzed as I am to read about how sophisticated magical techniques and state-of-the-art brain science combine."—Mac King, headliner, Harrah's Las Vegas
"In Sleights of Mind, authors Stephen Macknik and Susana Martinez-Conde persistently remind us that the human mind is a bad data-taking device. And it's this fact that enables the science of magic to exist at all."—Neil deGrasse Tyson,author of The Pluto Files
"The authors make easily comprehensible the effects of neural adaptation, afterimages, occlusion, perspective, saccades, inattentional blindness, expectations and the pliability of memory...Entertaining."--Kirkus
"In their illuminating book, brain experts Martinez-Conde and Macknik make their case that magicians are some of the most skilled neuroscientists around...By tricking readers into having fun learning neuroscience, the authors bring the newly minted field of "neuromagic" to center stage."--Laura Sanders, Science News
"This book offers 'a revolutionary look a the science behind magic--what leads the mind to believe tricks are real and how magicians actually use the brain's own logic to acheive this.'"--Phillip Manning, Science Book News
"Sleights of Mind makes brain science so much fun, you’ll swear the authors are as clever as Houdini."--Scientific American Book Club
Product Description
"This book doesn't just promise to change the way you think about sleight of hand and David Copperfield—it will also change the way you think about the mind." —Jonah Lehrer, author of How We Decide and Proust Was A Neuroscientist
Stephen Macknik and Susana Martinez-Conde, the founders of the exciting new discipline of neuromagic, have convinced some of the world's greatest magicians to allow scientists to study their techniques for tricking the brain. This book is the result of the authors' yearlong, world-wide exploration of magic and how its principles apply to our behavior. Magic tricks fool us because humans have hardwired processes of attention and awareness that are hackable—a good magician uses your mind's own intrinsic properties against you in a form of mental jujitsu.
Now magic can reveal how our brains work in everyday situations. For instance, if you've ever bought an expensive item you'd sworn you'd never buy, the salesperson was probably a master at creating the "illusion of choice," a core technique of magic. The implications of neuromagic go beyond illuminating our behavior; early research points to new approaches for everything from the diagnosis of autism to marketing techniques and education. Sleights of Mind makes neuroscience fun and accessible by unveiling the key connections between magic and the mind.
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Born to Run by Christopher Mcdougall (Author)
4.7 out of 5 stars (596 customer reviews)
(hardcover, paperback, kindle, audio)
Full of incredible characters, amazing athletic achievements, cutting-edge science, and, most of all, pure inspiration, Born to Run is an epic adventure that began with one simple question:Why does my foot hurt? In search of an answer, Christopher McDougall sets off to find a tribe of the world’s greatest distance runners and learn their secrets, and in the process shows us that everything we thought we knew about running is wrong.
Isolated by the most savage terrain in North America, the reclusive Tarahumara Indians of Mexico’s deadly Copper Canyons are custodians of a lost art. For centuries they have practiced techniques that allow them to run hundreds of miles without rest and chase down anything from a deer to an Olympic marathoner while enjoying every mile of it. Their superhuman talent is matched by uncanny health and serenity, leaving the Tarahumara immune to the diseases and strife that plague modern existence. With the help of Caballo Blanco, a mysterious loner who lives among the tribe, the author was able not only to uncover the secrets of the Tarahumara but also to find his own inner ultra-athlete, as he trained for the challenge of a lifetime: a fifty-mile race through the heart of Tarahumara country pitting the tribe against an odd band of Americans, including a star ultramarathoner, a beautiful young surfer, and a barefoot wonder.
With a sharp wit and wild exuberance, McDougall takes us from the high-tech science labs at Harvard to the sun-baked valleys and freezing peaks across North America, where ever-growing numbers of ultrarunners are pushing their bodies to the limit, and, finally, to the climactic race in the Copper Canyons. Born to Run is that rare book that will not only engage your mind but inspire your body when you realize that the secret to happiness is right at your feet, and that you, indeed all of us, were born to run.
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Influence by Robert B. Cialdini (Author)
4.7 out of 5 stars (154 customer reviews)
(paperback, kindle)
Influence: Science and Practice is an examination of the psychology of compliance (i.e. uncovering which factors cause a person to say “yes” to another's request).
Written in a narrative style combined with scholarly research, Cialdini combines evidence from experimental work with the techniques and strategies he gathered while working as a salesperson, fundraiser, advertiser, and in other positions inside organizations that commonly use compliance tactics to get us to say “yes.” Widely used in classes, as well as sold to people operating successfully in the business world, the eagerly awaited revision of Influence reminds the reader of the power of persuasion.
Cialdini organizes compliance techniques into six categories based on psychological principles that direct human behavior: reciprocation, consistency, social proof, liking, authority, and scarcity.
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Think Twice: Harnessing the Power of Counterintuition by Michael J. Mauboussin
4.4 out of 5 stars (34 customer reviews)
(hardcover, kindle, audio)
Leaders in all fields-business, medicine, law, government-make crucial decisions every day. The harsh truth is that they mismanage many of those choices, even though they have the right intentions. These blunders take a huge toll on leaders, their organizations, and the people they serve.
Why is it so hard to make sound decisions? We fall victim to simplified mental routines that prevent us from coping with the complex realities inherent in important judgment calls. Yet these cognitive errors are preventable. In Think Twice, Michael Mauboussin shows you how to recognize-and avoid-common mental missteps, including:
-Misunderstanding cause-and-effect linkages
-Aggregating micro-level behavior to predict macro-level behavior
-Not considering enough alternative possibilities in making a decision
-Relying too much on experts
Sharing vivid stories from business and beyond, Mauboussin offers powerful rules for avoiding each error. And he explains how to know when it's time to think twice-to question your reasoning and adopt decision-making strategies that are far more effective, even if they seem counterintuitive.
Master the art of thinking twice, and you'll start spotting dangerous mental errors-in your own decisions and in those of others. Equipped with this awareness, you'll soon begin making sounder judgment calls that benefit (rather than hurt) your organization.
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Blind Spots: Why Smart People Do Dumb Things
Madeleine L. Van Hecke (Author)
3.8 out of 5 stars (22 customer reviews)
(paperback, kindle)
Clinical psychologist Van Hecke has compiled a list of 10 mental glitches that have infiltrated contemporary society, afflicting even the smartest among us, limiting thought, success and relationships. Van Hecke devotes a chapter to each blind spot, including "Not stopping to think," "Not noticing," "Jumping to conclusions" and "Missing the big picture." Examining each in detail, Van Hecke details the root causes of these unconscious habits ("information overload," "our tendency to habituate") and tactics for overcoming them, using humorous anecdotes and other real-life examples to drive her points; the key is remaining open to new ideas and taking a step back from our busy lives in order to process information, situations and people. Filling in "the big picture" herself, Van Hecke demonstrates how embracing and understanding our weaknesses can not only improve personal and professional relationships, but also entire communities; this self-help is a welcome, highly readable first step.
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The Watercooler Effect: An Indispensable Guide to Understanding and Harnessing the Power of Rumors
Ph.D., Nicholas DiFonzo (Author)
3.4 out of 5 stars (8 customer reviews)
(hardcover, kindle)
DiFonzo, a professor of psychology at the Rochester Institute of Technology whose work on rumors was featured in the New York Times Magazine's 2006 Year in Ideas issue, uncovers some surprising facts about rumors: what they are and why we spread them, listen to them and believe them. Drawing on a host of studies, DiFonzo illustrates how rumors are a fundamental phenomenon of social beings. Rumors are created by people who are in unclear or confusing situations and want desperately to find an explanation. There are different varieties of rumors: they can express something much wished for (year-end bonuses), while others are a form of propaganda. Rumors can be a remarkably efficient way of spreading information: a study of military gossip during WWII found that the grapevine passed information just as accurately as—and more quickly than—official channels. But gossip drives wedges between people as often as it binds them. Viral rumors, spread repeatedly by e-mail, can gain credibility from repetition, and such repetition can turn a rumor into a self-fulfilling prophecy: banks fail, stocks tank. DiFonzo's clear explanations and entertaining examples make for thoughtful reading.
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Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me)
Carol Tavris (Author)
4.5 out of 5 stars (116 customer reviews)
(hardcover, paperback, kindle, audio)
Why do people dodge responsibility when things fall apart? Why the parade of public figures unable to own up when they screw up? Why the endless marital quarrels over who is right? Why can we see hypocrisy in others but not in ourselves? Are we all liars? Or do we really believe the stories we tell? Renowned social psychologists Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson take a compelling look into how the brain is wired for self-justification. When we make mistakes, we must calm the cognitive dissonance that jars our feelings of self-worth. And so we create fictions that absolve us of responsibility, restoring our belief that we are smart, moral, and right--a belief that often keeps us on a course that is dumb, immoral, and wrong. Backed by years of research and delivered in lively, energetic prose, Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me) offers a fascinating explanation of self-deception--how it works, the harm it can cause, and how we can overcome it.
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Buy, Buy Baby: How Consumer Culture Manipulates Parents and Harms Young Minds
Susan Gregory Thomas (Author)
4.6 out of 5 stars (17 customer reviews)
(hardcover, paperback)
According to reporter Thomas, modern marketers believe that "the moment a baby can see clearly, she becomes a consumer." Indeed, as investigative journalist Thomas discovered, some marketers start earlier, with an array of fetal "education" gimmicks designed to broadcast music and vocabulary to the mother's womb. Thomas interviewed a wide range of child development experts, product developers, marketing consultants and educators to write this well-researched exposé of the brave new world of American babies. Parents no longer believe that unstructured, baby-directed play and exploration is a valid use of baby's time. Parents buy videos and toys marketed as tools so that baby's every free moment can be a learning opportunity, even if there's no evidence that babies learn anything from these products. The phenomenon of KGOY—kids getting older younger—has passed from tweens down to toddlers and lap babies. Younger and younger children are watching more and more television and videos, she argues, and identifying with more "licensed character" products. Some of the problem lies with today's Gen-X parents, says Thomas, who's one herself. Having grown up with latchkeys and divorced parents, with only television for comfort, they want to give their own children everything—and marketers know how to play to their insecurities. Thomas ends with Pooh's plea for "Doing Nothing"—an idea many parents may be relieved to embrace.
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Delusions of Gender: How Our Minds, Society, and Neurosexism Create Difference Cordelia Fine (Author)
4.2 stars based on 17 reviews
(paperback, kindle, no audio)
From Booklist
In a methodical and devastatingly effective manner, Fine eviscerates the recent trend in attributing society’s gender-based differences to biology. The sheer girth of her analysis is staggering as she addresses everything from scientific studies going back more than a century to the latest assertions of “Mars and Venus” author John Gray. Fine pivots from studies on gender-based clothing and toys to a discussion of education, and reviews recent Caldecott Award-winning children’s books, noting that one gender is consistently described as “beautiful, frightened, worthy, sweet, weak and scared.” (Guess which one.) Fine also explains how experiments are manipulated to provide desirable results and how results are presented without necessary caveats (such as the fact that men were not part of the study). This is social science at its hard-working best as Fine uses solid references to refute the notion that biology trumps pervasive stereotyping, and offers a sterling rebuttal to agenda research and the lure of pseudo-science. --Colleen Mondor
Review
Fine turns the popular science book formula on its head. Chapter-by-chapter, she introduces ideas about innate differences between the sexes… and then tartly smacks around studies supposedly supporting them. (Dan Vergano - USA Today)
Cordelia Fine’s thorough (and funny!) Delusions of Gender punches a giant hole in the idea that women's brains are somehow ‘hardwired’ for nurturing and domesticity. (Anna North - Jezebel.com )
[Fine] effectively blows the lid off of old tropes… Weaving together anecdotes, dense research and quotes from numerous experts, she offers a well-balanced testament to the many ways in which cultural rules inform behaviors often mistaken as organic to our brains, as opposed to learned… [An] informative and often surprising study. (Kirkus Reviews )
Starred Review. With a fabulous combination of wit, passion, and scholarship, Fine demolishes many of the common theories offered to explain the construction of gender in contemporary society…. She shows that the fact that we spend our lives in environments that promote gender differentiation makes those differences nothing more than self-fulfilling prophecies. This marvelous and important book will change the way readers view the gendered world. (Publishers Weekly )
Delusions of Gender takes on that tricky question, Why exactly are men from Mars and women from Venus?, and eviscerates both the neuroscientists who claim to have found the answers and the popularizers who take their findings and run with them… [Fine] is an acerbic critic, mincing no words when it comes to those she disagrees with. But her sharp tongue is tempered with humor and linguistic playfulness… [R]ead this book and see how complex and fascinating the whole issue is. (Katherine Bouton - The New York Times )
In Delusions of Gender Cordelia Fine does a magnificent job debunking the so-called science, and especially the brain science, of gender. If you thought there were some inescapable facts about women’s minds—some hard wiring that explains poor science and maths performance, or the ability to remember to buy the milk and arrange the holidays—you can put these on the rubbish heap. Instead, Fine shows that there are almost no areas of performance that are not touched by cultural stereotypes. This scholarly book will make you itch to press the delete button on so much nonsense, while being pure fun to read. (Uta Frith FBA, FMedSci, FRS; Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London )
Cordelia Fine has a first-rate intellect and writing talent to burn. In her new book, Delusions of Gender, she takes aim at the idea that male brains and female brains are ‘wired differently,’ leading men and women to act in a manner consistent with decades-old gender stereotypes. Armed with penetrating insights, a rapier wit, and a slew of carefully researched facts, Fine lowers her visor, lifts her lance, and attacks this idea full-force. Whether her adversaries can rally their forces and mount a successful counter-attack remains to be seen. What’s certain at this point, however, is that in Delusions of Gender Cordelia Fine has struck a terrific first blow against what she calls ‘neurosexism.’ (William Ickes, author of Everyday Mind Reading: Understanding What Other People Think and Feel )
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Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things [Hardcover]
Randy O. Frost (Author), Gail Steketee (Author)
4.4 stars based on 55 reviews
(hardcover, kindle, audio)
Amazon.com Review
Product Description
What possesses someone to save every scrap of paper that's ever come into his home? What compulsions drive a woman like Irene, whose hoarding cost her her marriage? Or Ralph, whose imagined uses for castoff items like leaky old buckets almost lost him his house? Or Jerry and Alvin, wealthy twin bachelors who filled up matching luxury apartments with countless pieces of fine art, not even leaving themselves room to sleep?
Randy Frost and Gail Steketee were the first to study hoarding when they began their work a decade ago; they expected to find a few sufferers but ended up treating hundreds of patients and fielding thousands of calls from the families of others. Now they explore the compulsion through a series of compelling case studies in the vein of Oliver Sacks.With vivid portraits that show us the traits by which you can identify a hoarder--piles on sofas and beds that make the furniture useless, houses that can be navigated only by following small paths called goat trails, vast piles of paper that the hoarders "churn" but never discard, even collections of animals and garbage--Frost and Steketee explain the causes and outline the often ineffective treatments for the disorder.They also illuminate the pull that possessions exert on all of us. Whether we're savers, collectors, or compulsive cleaners, none of us is free of the impulses that drive hoarders to the extremes in which they live.
For the six million sufferers, their relatives and friends, and all the rest of us with complicated relationships to our things, Stuff answers the question of what happens when our stuff starts to own us.
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Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition, and Health, Revised and Expanded Edition (California Studies in Food and Culture) [Paperback]
Marion Nestle (Author)
4.1 stars based on 45 reviews
(paperback, audio - no kindle)
Amazon.com Review
In the U.S., we're bombarded with nutritional advice--the work, we assume, of reliable authorities with our best interests at heart. Far from it, says Marion Nestle, whose Food Politics absorbingly details how the food industry--through lobbying, advertising, and the co-opting of experts--influences our dietary choices to our detriment. Central to her argument is the American "paradox of plenty," the recognition that our food abundance (we've enough calories to meet every citizen's needs twice over) leads profit-fixated food producers to do everything possible to broaden their market portion, thus swaying us to eat morewhen we should do the opposite. The result is compromised health: epidemic obesity to start, and increased vulnerability to heart and lung disease, cancer, and stroke--reversible if the constantly suppressed "eat less, move more" message that most nutritionists shout could be heard.
Nestle, nutrition chair at New York University and editor of the 1988 Surgeon General Report, has served her time in the dietary trenches and is ideally suited to revealing how government nutritional advice is watered down when a message might threaten industry sales. (Her report on byzantine nutritional food-pyramid rewordings to avoid "eat less" recommendations is both predictable and astonishing.) She has other "war stories," too, that involve marketing to children in school (in the form of soft-drink "pouring rights" agreements, hallway advertising, and fast-food coupon giveaways), and diet-supplement dramas in which manufacturers and the government enter regulation frays, with the industry championing "free choice" even as that position counters consumer protection. Is there hope? "If we want to encourage people to eat better diets," says Nestle, "we need to target societal means to counter food industry lobbying and marketing practices as well as the education of individuals." It's a telling conclusion in an engrossing and masterfully panoramic exposé. --Arthur Boehm --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
From Library Journal
Nestle (chair, nutrition and food studies, NYU) offers an expos‚ of the tactics used by the food industry to protect its economic interests and influence public opinion. She shows how the industry promotes sales by resorting to lobbying, lawsuits, financial contributions, public relations, advertising, alliances, and philanthropy to influence Congress, federal agencies, and nutrition and health professionals. She also describes the food industry's opposition to government regulation, its efforts to discredit nutritional recommendations while pushing soft drinks to children via alliances with schools, and its intimidation of critics who question its products or its claims. Nestle berates the food companies for going to great lengths to protect what she calls "techno-foods" by confusing the public regarding distinctions among foods, supplements, and drugs, thus making it difficult for federal regulators to guard the public. She urges readers to inform themselves, choose foods wisely, demand ethical behavior and scientific honesty, and promote better cooperation among industry and government. This provocative work will cause quite a stir in food industry circles. Highly recommended. Irwin Weintraub, Brooklyn Coll., NY
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
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The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values
Sam Harris
4.3 out of 5 stars (165 customer reviews)
Beautifully written as they were (the elegance of his prose is a distilled blend of honesty and clarity) there was little in Sam Harris's previous books that couldn't have been written by any of his fellow 'horsemen' of the 'new atheism'. This book is different, though every bit as readable as the other two. I was one of those who had unthinkingly bought into the hectoring myth that science can say nothing about morals. To my surprise, The Moral Landscape has changed all that for me. It should change it for philosophers too. Philosophers of mind have already discovered that they can't duck the study of neuroscience, and the best of them have raised their game as a result. Sam Harris shows that the same should be true of moral philosophers, and it will turn their world exhilaratingly upside down. As for religion, and the preposterous idea that we need God to be good, nobody wields a sharper bayonet than Sam Harris.
--Richard Dawkins
“Reading Sam Harris is like drinking water from a cool stream on a hot day. He has the rare ability to frame arguments that are not only stimulating, they are downright nourishing, even if you don’t always agree with him! In this new book he argues from a philosophical and a neurobiological perspective that science can and should determine morality. His discussions will provoke secular liberals and religious conservatives alike, who jointly argue from different perspectives that there always will be an unbridgeable chasm between merely knowing what is and discerning what should be. As was the case with Harris’ previous books, readers are bound to come away with previously firm convictions about the world challenged, and a vital new awareness about the nature and value of science and reason in our lives.”
—Lawrence M. Krauss, Foundation Professor and Director of the ASU Origins Project at Arizona State University, author of The Physics of Star Trek, and, Quantum Man: Richard Feynman’s Life in Science
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Steven Johnson
4.1 out of 5 stars (25 customer reviews)
From Publishers Weekly
Johnson--writer, Web guru, and bestselling author of Everything Bad Is Good for You--delivers a sweeping look at innovation spanning nearly the whole of human history. What sparks our great ideas? Johnson breaks down the cultural, biological, and environmental fuel into seven broad "patterns," each packed with diverse, at times almost disjointed anecdotes that Johnson synthesizes into a recipe for success. A section on "slow hunches" captivates, taking readers from the FBI's work on 9/11 to Google's development of Google News. A section on error takes us through a litany of accidental innovations, including the one that eventually led to the invention of the computer. "Being right keeps you in place," Johnson reminds us. "eing wrong forces us to explore." It's eye-opening stuff--although it does require an investment from the reader. But as fans of the author's previous work know, an investment in Johnson pays off, and those who stick with the author as he meanders through an occasional intellectual digression will come away enlightened and entertained, and with something perhaps even more useful--how to recognize the conditions that could spark their own creativity and innovation. Another mind-opening work from the author of Mind Wide Open. (Oct.) (c)
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From Booklist
The figure of the lone genius may captivate us, but we intuit that such geniuses’ creations don’t materialize in a vacuum. Johnson supported the intuition in his biography of eighteenth-century scientist Joseph Priestly (The Invention of Air, 2009) and here explores it from different angles using sets of anecdotes from science and art that underscore some social or informational interaction by an inventor or artist. Assuring readers that he is not engaged in “intellectual tourism,” Johnson recurs to the real-world effects of individuals and organizations operating in a fertile information environment. Citing the development of the Internet and its profusion of applications such as Twitter, the author ascribes its success to “exaptation” and “stacked platforms.” By which he means that curious people used extant stuff or ideas to produce a new bricolage and did so because of their immersion in open networks. With his own lively application of stories about Darwin’s theory of atolls, the failure to thwart 9/11, and musician Miles Davis, Johnson connects with readers promoting hunches and serendipity in themselves and their organizations. --Gilbert Taylor
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The Honor Code: How Moral Revolutions Happen
5.0 out of 5 stars (3 customer reviews)
From Publishers Weekly
Rooting his analysis firmly in historical manifestations of honor, Appiah (Cosmopolitanism), a professor of philosophy at Princeton, offers four case studies in what he calls moral revolutions, attesting to how altering notions of honor can provoke positive changes in social behavior. Codes of honor surrounding dueling, Chinese foot binding, the Atlantic slave trade, and the ongoing practice of honor killing in contemporary Pakistan are all examined to reveal the various dimensions of honor as it relates to notions of respect, shame, and dignity. Appiah argues for a distinction between honor and morality that underpins how and why abhorrent practices so often continue despite their criminalization. While the author devotes too much space to basic historical narrative and not nearly enough to the complex issues of how honor relates to morality and how it can be distinguished from the constellation of notions like respect that he draws on, it is nonetheless a compelling read and represents a refreshingly concrete solution to the question of how to alter deeply objectionable, deeply intractable human practices.
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The Power of Positive Deviance: How Unlikely Innovators Solve the World's Toughest Problems [Hardcover]
Richard Pascale (Author), Jerry Sternin (Author), Monique Sternin (Author)
5.0 out of 5 stars (5 customer reviews)
Think of the toughest problems in your organization or community. What if they'd already been solved and you didn't even know it?
In The Power of Positive Deviance, the authors present a counterintuitive new approach to problem-solving. Their advice? Leverage positive deviants--the few individuals in a group who find unique ways to look at, and overcome, seemingly insoluble difficulties. By seeing solutions where others don't, positive deviants spread and sustain needed change.
With vivid, firsthand stories of how positive deviance has alleviated some of the world's toughest problems (malnutrition in Vietnam, staph infections in hospitals), the authors illuminate its core practices, including:
· Mobilizing communities to discover "invisible" solutions in their midst
· Using innovative designs to "act" your way into a new way of thinking instead of thinking your way into a new way of acting
· Confounding the organizational "immune response" seeking to sustain the status quo
Inspiring and insightful, The Power of Positive Deviance unveils a potent new way to tackle the thorniest challenges in your own company and community.
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The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies (New Edition)
3.6 out of 5 stars (56 customer reviews)
From Publishers Weekly
Caplan, an associate professor of economics, believes that empirical proof of voter irrationality is the key to a realistic picture of democracy and, thus, how to approach and improve it. Focusing on how voters are systematically mistaken in their grasp of economics-according to Caplan, the No. 1 area of concern among voters in most election years-he effectively refutes the "miracle" of aggregation, showing that an uninformed populace will often vote against measures that benefit the majority. Drawing extensively from the Survey of Americans and Economists on the Economy, Caplan discusses how rational consumers often make irrational voters, why it's in politicians' interest to foment that irrationality, what economists make of the (non) existence of systematic bias and how social science's "misguided insistence that every model be a 'story without fools,' " has led them to miss the crucial questions in politics, "where folly is central." Readers unfamiliar with economic theory and its attendant jargon may find themselves occasionally (but only momentarily) lost; otherwise the text is highly readable and Caplan's arguments are impressively original, shedding new light on an age-old political economy conundrum.