Monday, November 7, 2011

You are Not so Smart



Published:  2011 by Gotham Books
Source:  Received from the Publisher for Review

  Here's a newsflash:  it turns out that I am not so smart.

  Upon reading David McRaney's book, I discovered a few things about myself, some of which I might not have wanted to know.  He describes 48 different psychological principles that we all experience and which give us the illusion that we are always conscious of what we are doing.  For example:
  1. Apohenia -- My niece and I share the same birthday.  Coincidence?  Sure. Meaningful?  Just to me (and hopefully her, but she's only 5 and right now birthdays are all about her as it should be)
  2. Dunbar's Number -- I have over 500 followers and followees on Twitter (@bibliosue if you don't already follow me!) but I regularly interact with less than 10% of that group. 
  3. Procrastination -- When I add foreign films and documentaries to my Netflix queue I feel so smart and cultured, but when push comes to shove I either keep moving them down the list to get something more popular or I let the DVD sit in its sleeve for a week before giving up and sending it back unwatched.
   Of course once I read about the principles they make perfect sense, but because I now know that I am not so smart it will not prevent me from experiencing them; but I will be aware of them.

   At times I found the narrative to be a bit heavy with details of the various experiments used to prove these principles, but they are necessarily included to show their effects.  Apart from that I found You are Not so Smart to be an interesting and entertaining read and a book that I think could make for interesting discussions with the right book group.

  The publisher has provided a copy of You are Not so Smart to giveaway to a lucky commenter (US and Canada only -- sorry!)  Please leave your e-mail address in your comment and on Sunday November 13, I will randomly select a winner and contact them by e-mail.

  Thank you to TLC Blog Tours for allowing me to participate, and be sure to check out the other stops on this tour:
Monday, October 17th: Sara’s Organized Chaos
Tuesday, October 18th: Simply Stacie

Wednesday, October 19th: Luxury Reading

Thursday, October 20th: Girls Gone Reading

Friday, October 21st: Patricia’s Wisdom

Monday, October 24th: Overstuffed

Tuesday, October 25th: Today’s Path

Wednesday, October 26th: Unabridged Chick

Thursday, October 27th: 1330V

Tuesday, November 1st: Books, Movies, and Chinese Food

Wednesday, November 2nd: He Geek/She Geek

Thursday, November 3rd: Acting Balanced

Monday, November 7th: Bibliosue

Wednesday, November 9th: EvolutionYou.net

Thursday, November 10th: A Bookish Affair





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3 comments:

  1. ZibileeNovember 7, 2011 at 10:17 AM

    I really want to read this one, and have been reading a lot of great things about this book all over the place. It sounds like there is so much in here that seems interesting! Great review!

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousNovember 9, 2011 at 12:48 PM

    I know what you mean about foreign films! I DO enjoy them, but they take so much more attention and effort to watch that I often put them off indefinitely. :)

    Thank for being on the tour!

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  3. AnonymousNovember 10, 2011 at 5:51 AM

    LOL, I've actually read something like that before, especially about how men think that they are smarter than they really are.

    I love all good films, many of them foreign. Growing up in Israel all the shows had captions so I'm used to reading them. I actually put closed captions on everything. Used to drive my wife nuts but once she got used to them she realized how much of the show she was missing.

    @heathertlc - I actually think it's less effort to watch a movie with captions because you don't have to pay 100% attention to the movie.

    http://www.ManOflaBook.com

    ReplyDelete

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