Review of Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman

This book, published in 2011, was recommended to me by my son when he came to stay for Christmas. I’ll give you due warning – if you are looking for an easy, lightweight read then leave this one on the pile and come back to it when you are ready to give your grey matter a thorough workout.

Experimental psychologist Daniel Kahneman has won a Nobel prize for his work on Prospect theory – but that is only part of the work he has done in a long career examining how the human mind operates. I found the font downright unfriendly as it’s far fainter and close packed than my middle-aged eyes want to tackle, but I soon discovered that this was a deliberate ploy. Kahneman has noticed that we respond to problem solving in largely two ways that he calls System 1 and System 2. Our System 1 is the normal default setting that mostly responds to the multitude of decisions that confronts us in our daily lives – it is quick, often providing an answer in less than a second; instinctive – System 1 will take clues, often inappropriately, from our surroundings and is also influenced by our emotional state. While Kahneman is at pains to emphasise System 1 works very well in a large number of situations, every single one of us make some major mistakes that can have life-changing consequences by relying too much on our System 1 reflexes.

System 2 is the type of thinking we employ when we come up against a problem that we identify as too difficult for our System 1 to process. System 2 is slower, more measured and less prone to be affected emotionally, although we should all be aware that our surroundings have far greater impact on our mindset than we realise. Kahneman discusses a set of experiments where the participants sat in a room and answered questions about how willing they were to help friends and/or people they didn’t know. When dollar signs were displayed across the screensavers on the computers, participants were noticeably less generous – even though they didn’t consciously notice the screensavers. But Kahneman also characterises our System 2 mental processing as being lazy – it is reluctant to engage. One of the things that nudges it to work is when the font is difficult to read…

Much of his most productive experiments were conducted with his collaborator and friend, Amos Tversky, now dead. Kahneman is more than generous with attributing a great deal of the credit for his achievements to his partner – and you get the sense that this book is, in part, a tribute to Tversky.

Kahneman’s prose, is very clear and if he uses any kind of jargon connected with his studies, he is at pains to fully explain exactly what he means. And the unfriendly font and measured writing style delivers some head-swivelling discoveries. For instance, when questioning patients who had just undergone a painful medical procedure, their recollection didn’t hinge on the duration of the procedure at all. Patients judged their experience on the peak pain levels (which they were asked to evaluate on a scale 1-10 every 60 seconds) and how much they were suffering when the procedure came to an end. So one patient who endured the procedure for twenty-five minutes felt more positive than another whose surgery lasted eight minutes, because that patient’s pain level right at the end was still significant. Ah, you’re thinking – that was because the second patient was in greater pain during the shorter operation. No – both patients reported the same pain levels… And this isn’t a one off finding – when recalling similar episodes, the duration is something that most people don’t recall effectively and so don’t factor in when recalling their experiences. Although, I’m hoping that particular experiment won’t be repeated any time soon, as those patients enduring the longer procedure had their operation deliberately extended.

So does the book measure up to the back cover hype? The answer is – yes it does. And if you are thinking of dabbling in the stock market, making any large purchases, or have a crucial decision to make regarding your health, then read this book first. In fact, I think I’m going to have to get my own copy, just in case…
9/10

My Outstanding Reads of 2012

I read 87 books in 2012 and started 2 more that I didn’t bother to finish. Although it probably is apparent from my blog, perhaps I should explain that I only review books that excite and impress me. My life is far too crowded to expend energy I don’t have on reading and writing about books I don’t like. So the books that make this list are the best of the best – those that have lodged in my shockingly bad memory, providing me with a slice of escapist magic. Or an extra insight into this higgledy-piggledy mess that has ended up being my life.

The Devil in a Forest by Gene Wolfe
The huge forest rustles with hidden food and threats, the river offers fish and the risk of drowning – and threading through all this is the scalding knowledge that life is precarious and cheap. And Mark has been caught between overwhelming forces.

The writing is pin-sharp and exquisite, with wonderful dialogue, superb scene setting and an interesting cast of characters, who are initially offered up as ciphers – and then, refuse to behave as you’d expect. As the violence escalates and events spin out of control, this tale gripped me and would not let go. And by the end, I had a clearer understanding of what it meant to be a peasant in a small village during the Dark Ages – despite the fact that I have a teaching Degree in History and regard myself as reasonably knowledgeable about that period.

The Last Family in England by Matt Haig
Prince is an earnest young dog, striving hard to live up to the tenets of the Labrador Pact (Remain Loyal to Your Human Masters, Serve and Protect Your Family at Any Cost). Other dogs, led by the Springer Spaniels, have revolted. Their slogans are ‘Dogs for Dogs, not for Humans’ and ‘Pleasure not Duty’. Mentored by an elderly Labrador called Henry, Prince takes his responsibilities seriously, and as things in the Hunter family begin to go badly awry – marital breakdown, rowdy teenage parties, attempted suicide – his responsibilities threaten to overwhelm him. And down in the park it’s even worse. Henry has disappeared: Falstaff the Springer Spaniel wants to lead Prince astray… What will he do next?

I got sucked in by the comedic cover and Jeanette Winterson’s description that the book is fabulous and moving and funny and strange. And – yes – she’s absolutely right, it’s all of those things. It’s also poignantly sad. The simple writing style is deceptive – Haig is dealing with some hefty issues in this slight book. Because, of course, this book is actually nothing at all to do with dogs – it is about choosing how to live your life. Are you going to bounce through like a Springer Spaniel, carefully avoiding any commitment? Or shoulder responsibilities even if they buckle you in the process? It behoves everyone to sometimes take the time to reconsider their choices – and this small book should be required reading for everyone.

Zoo City by Lauren Beukes
Zinzi December is an ex-journalist trying to rebuild her life after having been involved in the death of her brother. But in this alternate world, those who feel particularly guilty find themselves paired with an animal who may or may not contain the soul of the person they wronged. Beukes doesn’t spend a great deal of time on exposition, but the first person narrative is at times interspersed with other documents – and the academic treatise on the prejudice against ‘zoos’ is examined, along with its causes. Zinzi is bonded with Sloth, who she has to have reasonably close, or die a painful, terrifying death – but in addition, zoos have a gift. Zinzi’s is an ability to find lost things that she visualises floating above people.

And the Zoo City? A slum area in Johannesburg, inhabited by criminals – mostly accompanied by their animals. This is a vivid and richly different world, where the African slang words and rhythms rang with authenticity, along with the slick, wonderfully worded metaphorical language.  But don’t take my word for it – if you are remotely interested in speculative fiction and haven’t already got hold of this book, then do so. It is one of those books that will still be discussed ten years from now as a benchmark read of 2010/11.

The Hare With the Amber Eyes: A Hidden Inheritance by Edmund de Waal
This winner of the 2010 Costa Biography Award was fervently recommended by my sister-in-law, so I decided to give it a try – although to be honest, the blurb didn’t fill me with enthusiasm.

264 Japanese wood and ivory carvings, none of them bigger than a matchbox: Edmund de Waal was entranced when he first encountered the collection in his great uncle Iggie’s Tokyo apartment. When he later inherited the netsuke, they unlocked a story far larger and more dramatic than he could ever have imagined. From a burgeoning empire in Odessa to fin de siècle Paris, from occupied Vienna to Tokyo, Edmund de Waal traces the netsuke’s journey through generations of his remarkable family against the backdrop of a tumultuous century. For de Waal, a noted potter in his own right, just happens to belong to one of the major Jewish banking families who operated out of Vienna, Paris and London at the height of their powers.

Using a collection of objects as the nucleus of the narrative was inspired and probably made it possible to consider recounting the trauma caused by the Nazi’s aggression and the vicious anti-Sematic comments and open prejudice that winds a dark thread through this account. This book is a testament to the sheer resilience and toughness of a family who have managed to not only endure being ripped apart, stripped of all their property and evicted from their country of birth – but thrive. Along with their collection of Japanese figures.

Lightborn by Tricia Sullivan
Lightborn is a revolutionary new technology that has transformed the modern world. Better known as ‘shine’, it is the ultimate in education, self-improvement and entertainment – beamed directly into the mind of anyone who can meet the asking price. But what do you do if the shine in question has a mind of its own…?

We follow the fortunes of two youngsters, Roksana and Xavia as they struggle to cope when life in the Arizona town of La Sombre falls apart as the adults all go mad. This being Sullivan, don’t expect classic dystopian, ‘Oh my God, the world is falling apart, isn’t this awful?’ What marks her out as such a joy to read, is that she is an author who assumes her readers are intelligent enough to keep up without having everything spelt out. So as we watch both Roksana and Xavia’s characters mature throughout the catastrophe and follow their personal griefs and coping strategies, their personal stories steadily unfold. Her writing, as ever, is wonderful. Dialogue is pitch perfect and the passages describing the sentient lightborn as it interacts with the human brain is brutal and beautiful. As you may have gathered, I highly rate this book. But don’t take my word for it – go find a copy and read it yourself.

Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? by Jeanette Winterson
This is an autobiography about Jeanette Winterson’s unusual and destructive childhood that was partly covered in her fictional version, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit. She was adopted by the Winterson’s, who were Pentecostalists. That could still have worked out just fine – except that Mrs Winterson was very disappointed with Jeanette almost from the start when she proved to be baby that cried a lot…. And from there it slid away into disaster. Mostly because you wouldn’t want to let Mrs Winterson near any breathing being – and the thought of having the small child depicted on the cover of the book at her mercy makes me feel queasy.

What this book isn’t, though, is one of the misery memoirs that hit the shelves a few years back. Jeanette Winterson would rather rip her tongue out by the roots than have her readers pity her. She was far too busy questing for books and finding ways to survive Mrs Winterson’s depressive and self-destructive attitude to Life. Indeed, she appeared to not only survive, but outright thrive once she fought free of Accrington. This book deserves to be read at least once by anyone who’s had a bumpy childhood. You’ll come away feeling empowered and admiring.

Age of Aztec – Book 4 in the Pantheon series by James Lovegrove
The date is 4 Jaguar 1 Monday 1 House; November 25th 2012 by the old reckoning. The Aztec Empire rules the world, in the name of Quetzalcoatl – the Feathered Serpent – and her brother gods. The Aztec reign is one of cruel and ruthless oppression, fuelled by regular human sacrifice. In the jungle-infested city of London, one man defies them: the masked vigilante known as the Conquistador.

We follow the exploits of the Conquistador as he rebels against the might of the Aztec Empire for his own reasons – a personal tragedy that sums up, for him, all that is wrong with the current regime. Britain had been one of the last countries on the planet to fall under Aztec domination and as a patriot, the Conquistador – or Stuart Reston, to use his everyday identity – yearns for the country’s lost freedom. But as the chase between Stuart and Mal intensifies, the unique twists that Lovegrove has made his own in this series transform this book into something far cleverer and more memorable. This page-turner has its own share of dark humour as well as well-rounded protagonists that we care about. Lovegrove’s smart intellect shines through his prose and shows in the pin-sharp perfection of his pacing and plot structure.

The startling backdrop – London simmers in equatorial heat as monkeys and creepers infest the streets with ziggurats littering the landscape – is well described without holding up the action. Which is just as well, because this book starts with a bang and doesn’t let up till the final, shocking climax.

The Little Broomstick by Mary Stewart
This classic Fantasy tale – knocking around long before Harry Potter was a twinkle in Rowling’s eye – was always a firm favourite with all my classes when I taught. I dug out my copy and read it to my granddaughter. Despite the unfashionably long descriptive passages, the narrative was sufficiently engrossing that it held her rapt right through to the end.

Quite right, too. I’d forgotten what a little gem it is, with beautifully flowing and evocative prose the whips the story along at a fair clip. Mary Smith is ten years old and due to an unfortunate illness and bad timing, finds herself parked with Great-Aunt Charlotte in her large house, Red Manor, in the heart of Shropshire right at the end of the summer holidays. There is nothing much to do. Until she encounters a beautiful black cat called Tib with glowing green eyes, who leads her to a rare flower in the middle of the woods…. And from that beginning, the adventure whisks up its young readers and doesn’t let up until the final page. Plain Mary Smith is an enjoyable, appealing protagonist who is just the right mix of innocence and quick wittedness. But there are also a strong cast of supporting characters – particularly the wonderfully creepy Madam Mumblechook and her sidekick, Doctor Dee.

Endor College, educational establishment of witches and black magic, is vividly described and until I read this again to Frankie, I’d forgotten just how disturbing it is. Under the cosy touches – ‘Badness me’ as an exclamation, for instance – there is real menace. Stewart’s wonderful description of Tib does more than mark her out as a cat lover – it also highlights the contrast between the lithe, independent creature who befriends Mary and the twisted toadlike thing he becomes thanks to Madam Mumblechook and Doctor Dee. And the reason why they expend all this magical energy and effort to transform Tib and a host of other creatures? Because they can.  Stewart gives youngsters a powerful insight into the nature of evil – all too often it isn’t about world domination with overblown, pantomime-type characters that slide into the ridiculous. It is about people in everyday situations who abuse the power they have to twist and torment those powerless to prevent them.

The Broken Kingdoms – Book 2 of The Inheritance trilogy by N.K. Jemisin
Like all really good writers – and Jemisin is certainly that – she assumes that her readers are bright enough to join up the dots without spelling out every last nuance and allusion. So it becomes interesting to see characters we’ve already got to know well from an entirely different viewpoint.

However, what has this book humming is the vibrant story of Oree and her injured refugee. I’d intended to read a couple of chapters – but Jemisin’s magical prose drew me in and before I knew it, I was nearly at the end of the book. In addition to a cracking plot with various twists and turns that I didn’t see coming, there is Oree’s spiky character. She is an endearing protagonist – a great mix of gritted stubbornness and vulnerability. The supporting cast are a wonderful mix of godlings, gods and driven individuals, whose power and capacity to hold a grudge produce a deadly cocktail of vengeful anger. We are given a ringside seat at an immortal family tragedy from a mortal’s viewpoint, with Oree stuck right in middle of the immortal scrap – a very neat trick to pull off. As an additional treat, following the genre convention, Jemisin isn’t afraid to give us flights of descriptive prose that verses on the poetic.
I was completely drawn into the action – and found the ending moving and appropriate. Not only does The Broken Kingdom manage to live up to the promise shown in A Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, it surpassed my expectations. If this excellent series has somehow slipped past your radar, I highly recommend it.

Stray Souls – Book 1 of the Magicals Anonymous series by Kate Griffin
This is set in the same world – and the same backdrop – as Griffin’s highly successful Midnight Mayor series, featuring Matthew Swift as her conflicted and very powerful protagonist. I expected an action-packed plot wound full of tension and vivid descriptions of some of the less wholesome parts of London, which I certainly got – but what was a delightful surprise were the laugh-aloud moments. And this book is full of them. Griffin’s humour is pitch-perfect and a wonderful counterpoint to the full-on action and pathos. A book that leaves me with a lump in my throat while making me laugh always has a special place in my heart – it doesn’t happen all that often. And if Griffin’s descriptions leap off the page, then her dialogue is a joy – pin-sharp, funny and perceptive.

As for the ending, it was beautifully handled – both satisfying and poignant. All in all, while Griffin’s books have always been excellent, Stray Souls is outstanding and the best urban fantasy book I’ve read this year.

Review of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

This non-fiction book has become an international bestseller, charting a remarkable story that consumed the author for a decade.

Her name was Henrietta Lacks but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor Southern tobacco farmer whose cancer cells – taken without her knowledge – became one of the most important tools in medicine. The first ‘immortal’ human tissue grown in culture, HeLa cells were vital for developing polio vaccine, helped lead to important advances like in vitro fertilization and gene mapping, and have been bought and sold by the billions. Yet Henrietta herself remains virtually unknown, buried in an unmarked grave.

Now Rebecca Skloot takes us on an extraordinary journey, from the ‘coloured’ ward of Johns Hopkins Hospital in the 1950s to East Baltimore today, where Henrietta’s children and grandchildren live, and struggle with the legacy of her cells. Over the decade it took to uncover this story, Rebecca became enmeshed in the lives of the Lacks family – especially Henrietta’s daughter Deborah who was devastated to learn about her mother’s cells. She was consumed with questions: had scientists cloned her mother? Did it hurt her when researchers infected her cells with viruses and shot them into Space? What happened to her sister, Elsie, who died in a mental institution at the age of fifteen? And if her mother was so important to medicine, why couldn’t her children afford health insurance?

Reading a variety of scientific articles and books over the years, I’d already heard about these remarkable HeLa cells and was prompted to track this book down when I read about it in the New Scientist. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks follows an amazing story, helped by Skloot’s vivid writing which grabbed me by the throat and sucked me into this incredible tale. I was appalled at the grinding poverty endured by the Lacks family and horrified at Henrietta’s treatment which seemed every bit as barbarically brutal as anything you’ll find in Tudor apothecary notebooks. It didn’t help that Henrietta was coloured at a time when the south was divided along institutionalised racial lines. However, I don’t think poor Henrietta stood a chance against the rapacious cancer that ripped through her – the sheer toughness of those cells that are still going strong today, decades after her death, is a testament to the aggressiveness of this particular cancer.

Henrietta was only thirty-one when she died, leaving behind a young family. A good portion of the story deals with the painful grief of children who were never given sufficient information to come to terms with their mother’s involuntary role in a whole number of scientific breakthroughs. While the rest of the world marvelled at the sci-fi headlines describing the HeLa cells and their contribution to humankind’s knowledge, Henrietta’s daughter was riven with horror at that thought that some debased Alien-type version of her mother was locked up in a laboratory somewhere, enduring endless torment.

In America, the law currently says that once patients have had growths/moles/tumours removed, these tissues are no longer belong to them. Furthermore, if researchers and biotechnological companies find a useful gene or cell, they are entitled to sell off these portions for a profit – and American citizens can’t do anything about it, according to the latest Supreme Court ruling. However, this book isn’t in the business of portraying scientists as unfeeling villains – George Gey who removed the tissue sample from Henrietta and was responsible for growing it on, worked tirelessly on the project and freely allowed other scientists around the world access to the HeLa cells, making it possible for the large number of advances and scientific investigations to occur.

What this book starkly highlights is that the myth that science can somehow operate outside the messy business of living, is just that – a myth. The fact that a bunch of cells harvested from a young woman dying of cancer were responsible for a number of number of medical breakthroughs, doesn’t alter the fact that her children suffered by being completely ignored by that process. And if Rebecca Skloot hadn’t arranged for a portion of the royalties from her book to go towards a foundation to help Henrietta’s descendants, the hard fact is that they probably would be still unable to afford medical insurance.
10/10

Review of The Invisible Gorilla and Other Ways Our Intuition Deceives Us by Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons

The authors, Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons, won the 2004 Ig Nobel Prize in Psychology for Gorillas in Our Midst, a groundbreaking and world-famous experiment where they asked volunteers to watch a 60 second film of students playing basketball and told them to count the number of passes made. About halfway through, a woman dressed in a gorilla outfit strolled to the centre of the screen, beat her chest at the camera and then walked away. Half the volunteers missed seeing the gorilla…

Yep. It made my jaw drop, too. Unless you’ve already heard of the experiment, of course. Many people have, by all accounts. But before you shrug your shoulders and dismiss it as yet another oddball piece of human behaviour that doesn’t really apply to everyday life, just stop and think of the ramifications for a long moment. And if your imagination still fails you, then pick up this book and read on. You need to know what it has to say. Really.

A policeman called Kenny Conley, while chasing an armed criminal, failed to notice a brutal beating by fellow officers nearby. In a crackdown aimed at making an example of the officers involved, Conley was accused of perjury and obstruction of justice. During the trial, the jurors couldn’t believe he ran past the beating without noticing it. He was sentenced to thirty-four months in jail and fired from the Boston police force, after the Supreme Court refused to hear his appeal. However, when Chabris and Simons published their findings, they were contacted by a reporter who had begun to believe that Conley was telling the truth. Based on their evidence, there was a retrial, at which point it was shown that as Conley was entirely focused on the armed criminal he was chasing, it was highly likely that he didn’t notice anything else. Finally in 2006, Conley was reinstated by the Boston Police Force and awarded over $600,000 in back pay and the following year, he was promoted to detective. This is just one of the amazing stories that the book charts as it challenges a raft of our assumptions about ourselves and what we can do. We generally over-estimate our ability to multi-task; instinctively believe people who project confidence, whether or not they are competent; rely on our snap decisions for more heavily than we should; and think we are more capable than we are—with some scary consequences.

Despite the fact that it is written by two psychology professors, the writing style is clear and accessible, while the subject matter is absolutely riveting. If you write any kind of fiction, I highly recommend this book to you. It will give you all sorts of counter-intuitive evidence you can use to tweak those off-the-wall scenarios you have swirling around in your head.

On a more mundane yet vital level, if you are in the habit of conducting long conservations using a hands-free phone during car journeys, then you should urgently read Chabris and Simons’ findings on what that does to your ability to drive your car safely. Basically, they discovered that while folks are chatting on the phone, their driving is significantly impaired. However, if you are talking to a passenger, the same impairment doesn’t occur…

If you don’t pick up any other non-fiction book this year, I urge you to read this one. Your life may depend upon it.
10/10

Review of Swahili for the Broken-Hearted by Peter Moore

When Peter Moore visited the West Sussex Writers’ Club to talk about his travels and the books he wrote about them, I bought a copy of Swahili for the Broken-Hearted.

Peter embarked on his African adventure in an effort to escape his misery after his long-term girlfriend and former travelling companion dumped him. He decided to travel overland from Cape Town to Cairo by using a combination of public transport and lifts from people he met along the way. He is good at befriending people.

I’d expected to read a series of adventures delivered with the author’s laconic Aussie understatement that would leave me chuckling – while deeply grateful that it wasn’t me out there experiencing them. Well, that part was right. The sheer physical rigour of travelling in knee-buckling heat over cratered roads that wouldn’t look out of place on a battlefield in an overcrowded bus or train for hour upon hour, shouldn’t be underestimated. And I bring it up because, while Peter gives those facts a mention – his toughness means that conditions get really dire before he starts moaning about them. And the book is generously sprinkled with amusing tales – like the indignation of his drinking buddies in a South African township over his choice of beer when buying a round. Apparently, he’d bought them a woman’s drink so they thought he was insulting their manhood.

I was impressed by his deft, insightful character sketches and his sympathetic, unsentimental account of the grinding poverty and corruption he encountered. And there is an awful lot of poverty. Like the pavement sellers weeping when forced to part with their wares at prices they couldn’t afford. Things we take for granted – like adequate safety standards on public transport – are non-existent. To the extent that many Africans were shocked on learning that he was travelling on local buses and would warn him they weren’t safe.

Every so often, events would slide from the farcical into the outright dangerous – like the riot that Peter nearly walked into in Addis Ababa where he escaped by hiding in a coffin-maker’s shop while the mob outside destroyed a Toyota pickup truck.

The spare writing style ensures the book moves along at a brisk pace, with quick, clear descriptions as each new scene unfolded along the journey. My one niggle is that I would have preferred a few more word pictures throughout the book. It is, after all, a tale of travelling.

Those of you who attended the meeting will already know that Peter possesses sufficient self deprecating charm to stop a charging rhino and his amusing anecdotes left me slightly unprepared for the sombre undertone running through the book. As you’d expect of someone fleeing a broken heart, his mood is rather melancholy – which aptly reflects the appalling plight of many Africans in their daily lives. I was struck by the Zimbabwe man who told Peter that Jesus would soon be coming again as described in the Bible – as we were living through the end-time of war, plague and famine.

I had picked up the book anticipating an amusing romp through a part of the world I’d known as a child. What I actually got was a far more thought-provoking account of a continent in crisis – without any moralising or political harangue. It’s a neat trick to pull off and Peter Moore ably manages it. I think the jokey blurb on the cover sells this book short and despite the fact that travel books aren’t normally among the piles beside my bed, I shall be looking out for his other work.
8/10

Review of Why We Lie by Dorothy Rowe

When was the last time you told a lie? Why did you do so? This interesting and carefully researched book delves into a destructive aspect of human nature that most of us spend a lot of time not thinking about. Rowe’s extensive experience as psychologist and evident interest in history, politics and science gives her a very broad basis for her fascinating insights into why we resort to lying from a very early age. Our sense of self is so precarious, argues Rowe, that we will do anything to preserve it – even lie to ourselves.

She has some sharp observations to make about those in her own profession who insist on continuing to follow the practices of Freud, even though his observations and studies have been superseded by modern techniques such as brain scans, which shows us that there is no inherent ‘inner core’ within each of us. Rather, our brain receives a mass of external information about the world around us and resolves this input into a pattern that we think of as ‘self’. However your ‘self’ is nothing like my ‘self’ because my touch, taste, hearing, vision and imagination that constitutes my sense of who I am, are quite different to your various sensory impressions. I found this first section of the book profound and absorbing as she explains just how we use lies to defend ourselves, make ourselves more likeable and bolster our own self esteem, in addition to preserving our fragile ‘self’. The explanations as to what impels people to lie were riveting and illuminating – I certainly recommend any student of human nature reading the book for this section, alone.

However, Rowe extends her analysis to the professions, business, religion and politics. By citing recent events, such as America and Britain’s ill-planned war on Iraq under the guise of seeking weapons of mass destruction, she contends that lies have cost lives and billions of dollars. She goes on to denounce the hypocrisy of bankers and businessmen who become enmeshed in scandals like that of Enron and more recently, the selling of sub-prime mortgages that led to the financial crisis which is currently making all our lives miserably insecure. Rowe is an Australian and it shows. She doesn’t pull her punches as she points the finger and wags it reprovingly at a number of well-known statesmen and financiers for their dishonesty and complete lack of guilt.

Whether you agree with her analysis or not, this book is a readable, thought provoking reflection on our society and a basic faultline in human behaviour that Rowe argues, we should all consider taking more seriously.
8/10