Just Ask

A wonderful little guide to a specific but very powerful tool - asking the right questions to get what you want (nicely).
If you ever wondered why some people seem to be able to get a positive response when you have just been refused the same request - then this book is for you.

And the single most important point: if you want something then try asking for it - the worst you will get is a no!

The Black Swan

An excellent follow-on book to Fooled by Randomness, again a mixture of statistics and philosophy (but don't let that put you off).
Many people confuse the statement that "almost all terrorists are Moslems" with "allmost all Moslems are terrorists". Assume that the first statement is true, that 99% of terrorists are Moslems. This would mean that only 0.001% of Moslems are terrorists since there are around 1 billion Moslems and only say 10,000 terrorists overall in the world.
Your personal happiness depends far more on the number of happy events than their size so far better to have lots of mildly good things than one great thing in your life.
On the futility of budgets (p163)
Prediction requires knowing about technologies that will be discovered in the future. But that very knowledge would allow us to start developing them. Ergo, we do not know what we will know.
And his recepie for success: work hard in chasing opportunities and maximising exposure to them. (p209)

Microtrends

One of those books that doesn't seem that promising at first but the more you get into it the more interesting it gets. Published before the 2008 USA election but managed to predict a lot of teh underlying trends that in the end determined the outcome.

The message of the book is that you need to spot the small emerging trends not the great swings to get ahead of history.

Aong the journey some interesting quotes "hospital errors kill more people every year than either car accidentst or breast cancer", leading to a grwoth in self diagnosis and medication.

"In the USA today the top 1% of pets live better than 99% of the world's population.". "each year 600,000 prisioners are realeased from prision - a growth of 600% in 30 years"



This is written mainly from an American perspective but several chapters have a sidebar on the international parallel situations (and to be honest a lot of teh trends discussed can be directly translated.

Yes! 50 Secrets from the Science of Persuasion

One of the best books I have read in a long time, with 50 short items, each a revelation in itself taken from a variety of areas and building up to an overview of the many ways we are all influenced (even when we are adamant that things don't affect us)

Example titbits were how to get your teenage children to tidy their rooms (a small piece at a time)
Reduce theft of get communal areas tidied (have a mirror or pictures of eyes on the wall)
How to come across as more credible as a speaker (get someone else to read your bio - even if everyone knows you have supplied the bio)

Crucial Conversations

Not one of the better books I have read, though I probably should pay more attention to it as listening (and hence good communications) is an area I could always improve in.
I only caught part of the MD2MD session where I picked up the book and the basic message is reasonable but the presentation could be improved.

The Secret Life of Dust

Hannah Holmes has written one of those wonderful books that dives with great enthusiasm into an apparently mundane subject and uncovers so many tentacles and connections with other thoughts and ideas that you will be astounded.

A great book to source trivia pub questions from that I guarantee no-one will know the answers to!

The pig that wants to be eaten - 100 experiments for the armchair philosopher

A great book to dip into, especially for anyone who enjoys a good argument or who is trying to set a topic for a debating society.

Each chapter starts by outlining a particular scenario that is designed to then lead to a debate on a specific legal or moral or ethical point.

A particular favorite of mine is 'The poppadom paradox' where Sakisa savours the arrival of the poppadoms at her table in an indian restaurant. Her issue is that she believes she is a multiculturalist enjoying aspects of many other cultures - but to enjoy an experience fully she needs others (such as the indian waiter) to remain monoculturalists and play their role for her enjoyment as authentically as possible - but where does that leave Sakisa and her dream of a multiculturalist society!

Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast

A fascinating study into why human societies develop religion. Lewis Wolpert gives an explanation that belief was a by-product of the brain's development for using tools.

In essence, our brains are pre-programmed to have a tendency to accept religious and mystical beliefs because as our brains developed, they created causal beliefs of why the things around them were the way they were and did what they did. The better the organism was at this trick - the better it (and its offspring) survived.

Quite accessible as a read and he avoids technical jargon. Also not too dogmatic in the explanations.

The Stuff of Thought

A detailed study into how our brains function, based on a decomposition of the language structures we use.

Steven Pinker puts forward the argument that we are at a basic level merely a machine to process actions on objects.

Quite a technical read and reasonably theoretical in places - I wouldn't recommend it asa first book on the subject.