I Read Books: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

by J.K. Rowling

I'm assuming the whole world has already read and/or seen the movie so I'll skip the plot summary. I liked this book, although theres just one thing I can't understand. Why is Harry Potter so rebelious when he has so much to lose. Dude, chill out, and try not to get expelled so much.

I Read Books: Predictably Irrational

Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely

This book warmed my little nerdy heart. Dan Ariely is a professor of behavioral economics at Duke University. This book explains that consumer behavior is rarely logical, and well irrational.

This book was brilliant so I'll go through the points that stuck out in my mind:

It's really hard for consumers to lose something. It rarely crosses our mind if we never had it to begin with but if we had it - don't let it go away. i.e. people in debt will not downsize their extravagant living.

Choices available STRONGLY influence are decision making. We almost always choose the most appealing middle option. We love the middle. Do we have free choice? Our behavioral patterns mostly imply we don't. Our free choice is relative to our available choice.

We love anything 'free'. yup.

Humans are social, we are much more giving, willing to do much more time and effort into work if it is for free than if we are paid.. that is unless we are paid a lot.

Options are distracting. We love to keep options open to the point that it takes time and effort away from things that are really important to us. Maybe we need to make effort to close some doors.

We have a tendency to add sentimental 'value' to market value of possessions. Owners will price higher than buyers.

Placebo have a greater effect on us than we think. Especially high cost placebos.

There is a great relationship between dishonesty and one step removed from physical money. People won't steal money. They will steal almost anything else.

Okay, lots of stuff in this book. I absolutely love the author. Dan Ariely writes on economics and behavioral science like it's fun, well maybe it is. Top ten.

I Read Books: Blink

Blink by Malcolm Gladwell

This is the third book I've read by Gladwell (I've also read the Tipping Point and Outliers) and I have yet to be disappointed.

Blink is about our subconscious. Why we have immediate reactions, i.e. love at first sight, and what goes on in our mind when we have these reactions. Gladwell goes on to explain how we can alter this 'rapid cognition' although it will involve a ton of self disciplined education.

He explains how we tend to want to know as much information as possible when it comes to a decision. Wrong. Stick with the important facts and ignore the indirect stuff because that will just cloud our judgement.

I'm an indecisive person. Gladwell might have just helped me a little bit.

Less is more. Our immediate judgement on things are right more often then not so go with it. I'm down.

I Read Books: Harry Potter

I've never really felt the urge to read Happy Potter. I was not pressured into it but I felt sort of left out, ya know, like the collective literary soul of intelligent and mindful people can't be wrong...

So I read Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

And yup, I get it. Rowling you are one classy lady. Harry, I will read on! Just not on the subway.