This was both a fun book and a serious book. You Are Not So Smart: Why You Have Too Many Friends on Facebook, Why Your Memory Is Mostly Fiction, and 46 Other Ways You’re Deluding Yourself by David McRaney looks at dozens of tricks that our mind plays. The author looks at the vast data that is coming out about how our brain functions and bursts a lot of bubbles about our logic and reasoning abilities.

Most of the tricks our mind plays are healthy — they keep us sane in an impossible world. But they are often egocentric, self-delusional, logically flawed, and even socially inept. There are a lot of descriptions of psychological tests that reveal the inner workings of our brain, but the book is laced with just enough humor to make you laugh at yourself. Each chapter ends with a simple, “You are not so smart” and you find yourself smiling each time.

Anybody interested in how the human mind works will enjoy this book. Anybody struggling with addictions, irrational behavior, confidence issues, intellectual flaws, or other problems will learn something about themselves (and let’s face it…that’s pretty much all of us). If I were a public speaker I’d read the book for the descriptions of the psychology tests alone because they are filled with interesting insights that could be weaved into a presentation.

It’s not a great book and it’s not one that I think is on a “must read” list. But it is a worthwhile book if the topic interests you.