Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness
by Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein

Another in the series of post-Freakonomics books where economists explain new concepts and applications for a popular non-fiction audience. This one’s on the subject of “Choice Architecture” – basically, being aware of the ways in which the presentation of options influences the outcome of a decision, and building said presentation to maximize certain choices.

This was an interesting and sometimes frustrating read for me, because I found some of the assumptions about how the world operates (standard assumptions among economists, as far as I can tell) to be the total opposite of mine. The twin ideas that the magic of the market will generally improve people’s lives, and that government intervention is always suspect, are often underlying their statements in an “everybody knows that” sort of way. Yet many of their suggestions require some sort of government intervention, usually buried inside of such neutral language as “credit card companies should be required to”. (See the chapter on the privatization of the Swedish social security system: the government chose a default fund that really is in the best interest of the citizens; the private companies that advertised their own portfolios just had pics of celebrities saying “buy our stuff!” and weren’t generally as good for the citizen as the default plan. Yet throughout the book the “market good, government bad” truism still holds. Curious.) The notion that a business’ goal of maximizing profits may be antithetical to the general public’s goal of, I dunno, not getting bled dry by the hidden costs of buying a house or a college education, is only mentioned within 20 pages of the end.

The first few sections of the book are worth reading for anybody: if nothing else, to understand how choice architecture influences your decisions (cost aversion versus reward seeking when setting goals, for instance) and to recognize times when your choices are being pushed in certain directions.

I swear I am still reading serious books, but some days just call for something a little more… pedestrian. Tastycakes for the brain, so to speak.

(EDIT: just noticed that I’d already given this one a full review when I first read it. I have no idea where my brain is.)
Seven Dials Mystery
Agatha Christie

This is part of a huge haul of mystery paperbacks from the 60s and 70s that I picked up from the library used book sale — and I’m glad it was only 20 cents. This one doesn’t feature any of the big name characters, and instead centers around youngish upper-class twits with insufferable knicknames like “Bundle” and “Socks”.  While there’s still the usual murder and mayhem, espionage – rather than the usual motivations of sex, money, and power – drives the story. Not really my thing, I guess.

It was gratifying to find out that the reviews when it was first published were less than enthusiastic though.

Death on the Nile
Agatha Christie

I’d seen the David Suchet film version of this one, and really loved it. I was surprised to find the changes moved in the opposite direction from usual: the book actually has more soppy romantic elements, which were taken out for the film.* Entertaining reading, in spite of the lovey-dovey mush.

Dead Man’s Folly
Agatha Christie

Noticing a pattern here? ^_^ I hadn’t been familiar with this one until I started in on the aging paperback – it’s a Poirot with a little Ariadne Oliver – mercifully little. I suppose if I were a mystery writer, the in-joke aspect of this character would be really amuse me. But I love Poirot and Marple because they’re sharp, and Ms. Oliver most certainly is not. However, outside of the moments when this dear old authorial stand-in wanders vaguely through the scene, this one was pretty solid. Clever set-up, unusual but competent pacing, well-sketched characters, and a convincing red herring. Worth the time to read.

Ten Second Staircase
Christopher Fowler

How’s thatfor unexpected? A whole different author! And while this one isn’t from The List, it’s not exactly mental junk food either. The most recent in the Peculiar Crimes Unit series, this one features an unusual series of crimes and a highly colorful cast – including a living, breathing London, full of current lives and collected memories. The storytelling of a really great history professor, mixed with the atmospherics of Neil Gaiman. The author has very visual style, which only occasionally slipped into the “I’m writing this with a future TV series (and major $$$) in mind” area. A great mystery of regular fiction readers, and suitable for upper-level YA readers as well.

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*Death on the Nile SPOILER: can you imagine if this had been Marple instead of Poirot, what the film version from the Geraldine McEwan era would have looked like? Linnet and Simon’s characters would have been switched, so that they could throw in a Linnet/Jacqueline/Rosalie lesbian orgy. Of course, if Rachel Stirling were playing Jacqueline, I’d have watched it anyway. ;)