Michael Lewis has entertained me before with comprehensible books about terribly-complex subjects, like bond trading (Liar's Poker), the mortgage meltdown (The Big Short), Wall Street hustlers (Flash Boys) -- and I knew he'd written similar books about baseball (Moneyball) and football (The Blind Side). So when I saw a new paperback release by him I picked it up at the bookstore and sat down to skim a few pages.
Before I knew it I was a chapter in, and anxious to continue -- though I scarcely knew what the book was about.
I got almost halfway through the book before that was resolved for me, and it really didn't clear up until the last chapter.
What he says it's about is "behavioral economics" ... but what I say is it's about how and why people make bad decisions. It's about how people misunderstand statistics and probability, about how the last thing you saw or read about or experienced is suddenly all you can think about (whether it was the last success or a recent chance disaster), how to motivate yourself (and other people) to make better decisions (often by removing choice from the equation). It's about two Israeli psychologists who worked together to overturn a century of "common sense" in economics and politics and financial regulation, by proving that common sense was wrong.
It really was not such a difficult subject as the aforementioned books. And a lot of what is discussed is pretty obvious on hindsight. But it remained a fascinating read all the way through.
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