I've been reading three books at once. All about the same basic theme, in their own ways. All non-fiction.
- Eat Pray Love, at the insistence of a lady friend.
- Stumbling On Happiness. Accidentally ordered the book on CD rather than the book.
- The Black Swan.
The first is pretty good - she has a light, funny and interesting writing style. It's about how (in this case) one woman can have a lot of the things that are supposed to make people happy and still be miserable, then go looking for her own happiness in different ways. I'm a cynic, but actually reading the book I found myself generally sympathizing with her.
The second is absolutely fascinating. It's about the science surrounding what makes us happy. It covers memory, how we predict the future, etc. It's truly eye-opening the ways that our own brains do not work the way they're supposed to, and how wrong we are in the things that we feel certain about. I highly recommend it - particularly the CD version, because you'll be riding along in the car saying, "Wow, I never realized that, but it's completely true."
The third is the most powerful. If "Stumbling Towards Happiness" is about how wrong the individual human brain is, "The Black Swan" is about how wrong the collective human brain is. The thesis is that we invent certainty and patterns and predictive reliability where there are only uncertainty, chaos and randomness. And then we make wrong decisions based on those wrong assumptions. The things we do to be safe are the things that make us most unsafe.
Especially for you business types, and those interested in politics, culture, and so on, this book should change your life. He's a very digressive writer, which can be frustrating, but overall the thesis is so amazing that you can't help but be wowed.
