Joey... Why is there a book in the freezer?

Carla made this comment on my last blog post: "you make me feel bad for only being able to say i've read A (singular) book in the last 2 months... i need to work on that."

So I feel like it is necessary to point out a few things.

1. It is summer and I am only teaching one class. This means that I work a grand total of about 16 hours a week. (It might be 20 if I have a super crazy long meeting to go to, like I did last week).

2. I live alone and only have to take care of myself. This means that it is perfectly acceptable to eat 4 crackers, a can of tuna fish, a bowl of frozen peas, and a peach for dinner. And it is also perfectly acceptable to leave the "dishes" from said "meal" on the counter. (As long as they don't smell or sprout fruit flies. That is unacceptable).

3. I am mostly reading books for my American Lit class. This means that reading books is my job. It just happens to be a pretty cushy job.

Ok, so I hope that now everyone has realized that I am mostly a slacker with tons of free time and has moved past feeling bad about themselves.

Sway: The Irrisistable Pull of Irrational Behavior by Ori and Rom Brafman

The premise: This is non-fiction. So what happened was Ori and Rom Brafman started noticing how often people make completely irrational decisions. They saw evidence of this from everyone, every profession, all different kinds of people and all different kinds of situations. So their book is an exploration of the different "sways" or ways we are pulled into behaving irrationally.

The review: This was fascinating. The Brafmans have a great conversational and friendly tone, so it is not at all dry or boring. They also provide a ton of examples, everything from Michael Jordan to the Vietnam and Iraq wars, to an airplane crash. The examples were almost always things that I knew about (so nothing ridiculously obscure) but they gave a bunch of examples for each sway, which helped explain, but also helps the reader remember.

My grandparents first recommended this to me last summer. They said that ever since they read it they walk around and see people to something and think, "Sway!" And I can totally see myself doing that too.