How We Decide

I am not usually a non-fiction reader outside of the occasional political tome, but I bought this after it was recommended by Virginia Postrel on her Twitter feed (and it was a 99¢ deal of the day on Amazon). To demonstrate how the brain’s chemical processes effect decision making, the author uses various real world examples like a quarterback picking a receiver, a pilot crash landing a plane and a world champion poker player. The anecdotes themselves are very interesting and on top of those there are quite a few examples of weird psychological studies. You know the sort: a patient’s brain is missing region X and because of this he can’t do Y. These are always fun to learn about but somewhat depressing when it begins to seem like everything we think, feel or do is because of some chemical fluctuation in our frontal lobe.