Books For Nerds
Right now, I'm reading a fascinating book on attention, Rapt: Attention and the Focused Life, by science writer Winnifred Gallagher. I'll have Gallagher on my radio show in the coming months. Attention doesn't seem like much of a subject, perhaps, but she makes it fascinating. She explains, for example, how our lives become what we pay attention to. And it's only about 200 well-written pages that I'm zipping through.

I highly recommend Dr. Barbara Oakley's Cold-Blooded Kindness: Neuroquirks of a Codependent Killer, or Just Give Me a Shot at Loving You, Dear, and Other Reflections on Helping That Hurts. Details on the book from my interview with Oakley here. And here's Oakley on my radio show on "pathological altruism," helping that hurts (like enabling behavior).

David DiSalvo's What Makes Your Brain Happy and Why You Should Do the Opposite. I just started reading this yesterday. Actually, I started skimming through it and couldn't help but read a chapter when I was supposed to be working on a column. Really well-written, clear thinking on common human irrationalities. My old favorite on the topic is Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me), by Tavris and Aronson. I'm excited to announce that DiSalvo will be on my radio show next weekend, helping all of us understand the thinking behind some of the really dumb things we do...in hopes of making us behave less stupidly and self-defeatingly in the future.

And Robert Trivers' The Folly of Fools: The Logic of Deceit and Self-Deception in Human Life . Heard him at Cal Tech last month. An hour and a half of straight-up brain candy.

And last but very much not least, please think of my book, I SEE RUDE PEOPLE: One woman's battle to beat some manners into impolite society, when you're buying Christmas presents. I figured out why people are rude, based in anthropology data, and how to change things, and it's funny and people tell me they're inspired to go after some of those walking all over them...or to just reach out and be kind to a stranger.

My book is only $11.53, brand new, with Amazon's discount at this link. Buying a new copy (not the "bargain book" version) helps me earn back my advance -- and helps me support this site and give advice, free of charge, to people whose questions will never make my column.

UPDATE: Oopsy, forgot one -- Robert Kurzban's really interesting book, Why Everyone (Else) Is a Hypocrite: Evolution and the Modular Mind, about self-deception and hypocrisy, and how the way our mind seems to be constructed -- as a bunch of specialized modules -- plays into those.