Product Description

Can you trust your brain? Perhaps it occasionally misfires when faced with the 13 times table, or persistently fails to master parallel parking. But the brain is pretty amazing. Never before have we known so much about the sophistication of those one hundred billion grey cells. You might feel justified in thinking that you know what your brain's up to, and that you're in control.

Sorry. Think again.

Your brain is vainglorious. It deludes you. It is pigheaded, emotional and secretive. Oh, and it's also a bigot. If your brain were a person you definitely wouldn't invite it to parties and it would probably be a politician.

This book reveals the fiendish little sins your brain gets up to behind your back.

An enlightening tour of the less salubrious side of human psychology, dotted with popular explanations of the latest research and fascinating real-life examples, Cordelia Fine's book tells you everything you always wanted to know about the brain - and plenty you probably didn't.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4206 in Books
• Published on: 2007-01-04
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

Alain de Botton, The Sunday Times
'Consistently well-written and meticulously researched'

Metro
'Clear and accessible - a science writer to watch'

Telegraph
'An entertaining tour of current thinking'

Customer Reviews

Very good
Excellent book. Written in a lighthearted manner, with many accounts of psychological experiments and their conclusions.

Makes you realise how little in control of yourself you really are...

Important but superficial
This is a really important and little understood issue. It is also fascinating. The implications are huge; think of the courts, the media, the democratic process. It deserves a really good book; I just wish this was it.

This is a book for a lay audience. It romps through a range of research findings in relatively few pages without getting too deep, which is both an advantage and a weakness. It is now 15 years since I was last interested in the subject and had hoped that the book would update me. In this I was disappointed. I found parts that were new to me but there is also some very relevant work (for example on visual perception) that was not covered. The text is well referenced but, apart from some information on the web, unless you have access to an academic library that is not much use.

I would have liked more detail, especially to judge whether the strength of the effect in question. Psychology research is notoriously difficult, in part because the researchers themselves are subject to some of the biases described in the book. It is much more difficult to control variables, prove causation and eliminate biases in psychology than, for example, in chemistry. The subject matter - humans - are so much more complex and the involvement of the researcher is more personal. To illustrate this, I thought that after an interesting section on stereotypes, the author herself fell into the trap of exhibiting a clear stereotype of males in a rather feminist approach to sexism. Incidentally, she also missed the opportunity to think more deeply about stereotypes which are not as negative as often painted.

The diversions into the authors private life were slightly irritating. Presumably she is vitally interested in her new born but she shouldn't assume the reader is similarly inclined. We picked up the book for quite a different reason.

The book started by explaining that it was written in a hurry during a busy period in the authors life. I am afraid that is how it felt, hurried and superficial. Despite that, if the subject is new to you, I would still recommend it. It does teach you to be a little less confident about what you know 'for sure'.

Excellent style
Excellent popsci writing and editing -- couldn't put it down. Other popsci writers should observe and learn.