Daniel Simons

This book, written by two cognitive psychologists, details why we get scammed and measures we can take to somewhat protect ourselves from scan artists.

The book is written in great detail, almost like a peer reviewed scientific journal, with extensive end notes after almost every paragraph. This style of writing would appeal more to the professional, but to the layman, it was a little too much. A less formal approach would have been better. The endnotes quickly became tiresome, having to switch from the place I was reading to the endnotes at the end of the book. I know I could have skipped the endnotes, as most were simply references to the source material, but some did have useful and interesting comments. All in all, I would have preferred the book without the endnotes. The endnotes were so extensive they consumed about 60 pages, just in themselves. This makes the actual book just over 200 pages of actual reading material.

I found the book interesting and useful, but the constant referring back and forth to the notes reduced my overall rating for the book.… (mehr)

I pretty much read this in one sitting while at the Atlanta airport awaiting my very late flight. Its enthralling. Using Chris's original experiment, the invisible gorilla, he leaps into discussions on how our memory is highly fallible, how we tend to put too much faith in confidence, how we think we know more than we really do, how we make assumptions and jump to conclusions that aren't there, and how we have this false belief that its possible to get smart quickly (ie: the Mozart craze).

Highly recommended.… (mehr)