Wise fools

    If you feel your synapses are in need of a little stimulation, this is the book for you!
    It's hard to plot precisely the range of Michael and Ellen Kaplan's extremely comprehensive Bozo Sapiens; likewise, to do justice to its pace, wit and all-round interest, but if I say it is broad but concise, compiled with consummate skill and beautifully written with a light touch, you'll get the general idea.
     Subtitled "Why to err is human", it examines how and why we make mistakes - why, when faced with a choice, we so often get it wrong, why, even when we have knowledge and past experience to help us, we fail to make the right call. The raw material used to support theories and provide explanations is a polymath's dream, and here I'm reminded of the BT advert where for Maureen Lipman's Beattie, her grandson's "ology" qualification was the highest mark of success; this book's "ologies" - from psychology to physiology, anthropology to sociology, with economic theory, philosophy and evolutionary biology thrown in, are more than enough to establish its credentials.
     So, if you want to know why going shopping when you're feeling low is just as dangerous as visiting the supermarket when you're hungry, why it's as bad an idea to lend the car to the elderly grandpa as to the teenage boy, why serotonin can make the workplace unpleasant, and it's not always wise to follow the leader, you'll find it all here. From dating to dieting, Shakespearian semantics to the Swiss T-shirt test, the authors use examples both trivial and highly serious to demonstrate how, as humans, our failures are a product of our success.
     I loved the humour, the effortless cross-disciplinary shifts, the presentation of complex, inter-connected information with ease and a stylish flourish. It's quite fascinating and makes highly rewarding reading - trust me, I'm not wrong!

Comments

[ted]

I just got this one, after learning of it from you, and the new Byatt too to take with me on vacation to your fair country!

[Samantha]

Hi Karen

I don't know what happened to my last comment! Anyway, it was rather a long one too. Oh well, I'll try again....

The book you mention here sounds "right up my alley". I love a good pop. science/psychology book. You have added to my current quandary of what one to choose next. I have also been considering The Drunkard's Walk by Leonard Mlodinow, Traffic by Tom Vanderbilt or Alain de Botton's Status Anxiety!

Also after many good reviews around the blogosphere (including your's here) I have pre-ordered the paperback version of An Equal Stillness from bookdepository.co.uk.

Another book that seems to have leapt to the head my queue is Colm Toibin's Brooklyn. I read his The Master and enjoyed it immensely.

(You may remember me as nutmeg from anothernutter.blogspot.com. I have retired that blog to exclusively blog about books at rubyredbooks.blogspot.com)

[Dark Puss]

I have a Swiss T-shirt - how do I test it please? I'm just finishing off Quantum by Kumar which you posted on in January. How are you getting on with that one?

[Cornflower]

Wonderful, Ted!

[Cornflower]

Samantha, if it helps you at all in your choice, I really did enjoy Bozo Sapiens enormously. I had to keep putting it down as I had fiction reviewing deadlines to meet, but it coped well with that benign neglect and kept my attention despite these frequent breaks!

[Cornflower]

You'll have to read the book to find out about the Swiss T-shirt test (all I'll say is that it involves women).
Quantum is still waiting patiently in the reading queue, I'm afraid.

[Mr Cornflower]

I'm about a third of the way through Bozo Sapiens and greatly enjoying it, though as an investment manager I'm finding rather uncomfortably that I recognise in myself a steadily lengthening list of classic behavioural biases which predispose us to make money-losing decisions.