Conspiracy of Fools: A True Story by Kurt Eichenwald

Conspiracy of Fools: A True Story by Kurt Eichenwald
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Very thorough and interesting account of all the myriad of things that went wrong at Enron and Arthur Anderson. The culture is very familiar to me from my days in big law.

View all my reviews

The Upside of Irrationality by Dan Ariely

The Upside of Irrationality: The Unexpected Benefits of Defying Logic at Work and at Home by Dan Ariely
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I gave it only 4 stars because there is a lot of overlap with Arely's other book, Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions. In particular, I think Predictably Irrational also addressed how high wages or bonuses are demotivating, how the "Sisyphean condition" at work is demotivating, and how we overvalue our own work.

I really enjoyed the new sections on adaption, "assortative mating" which is economist talk for hot people pairing up together, dating inefficiencies and how to potentially make them more efficient, and the joys of consumer revenge (though I'm certain that's not how Ariely would describe that section). There was also an interesting section on how we tend to follow our own example. Once we have behaved a particular way, we view our choices so positively that we continue to behave in that way. Mind-bending.

View all my reviews

Freefall by Joseph E. Stiglitz

Freefall: America, Free Markets, and the Sinking of the World Economy by Joseph E. Stiglitz
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Please, if you live in the United States, I beg you to read this book. The author is a winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics, and he makes the information he's conveying very clear to the non-economist. I realize it's a little old now and would benefit from a little updating, but it's still so valuable to understanding modern economic theory and how political decisions are affecting the economy. New favorite!

View all my reviews

Without Conscience by Robert D. Hare

Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of the Psychopaths Among Us by Robert D. Hare
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was written in the 1990s, so there's a lot of new science on the topic. I recommend reading this along with The Psychopath Inside: A Neuroscientist's Personal Journey into the Dark Side of the Brain by James Fallon- but possibly start with that one. That one will give you the basic science known today, and the author is a functioning psychopath himself who gives a lot of insight into his personality.

This one focuses more on criminal psychopaths because those are the people that more often come to the attention of specialized experts though there are some mentions of more functional psychopaths. It's very heavy on personal accounts of psychopaths and their crimes which certainly keeps the book entertaining but is a little low on the actual science for my taste, perhaps because as previously mentioned there was just less known on the topic in the 1990s.

I think it's important to understand that there's this group of individuals at large in society (and likely heavily rewarded in business and politics) that just aren't subject to the same rules of empathy as the rest of us. Certainly, a lot of non-psychopath people can be emotionally damaged or even assholes for no reason at all, but this complete lack of empathy or authentic feeling is unique and especially dangerous in both criminal and successful noncriminal psychopaths.

View all my reviews

The Big Short by Michael Lewis

The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine by Michael Lewis
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book is fascinating and depressing and enraging in equal parts and everyone in America should read it.

View all my reviews