The Wisdom of Crowds

Title: The Wisdom of Crowds
Book author: James Surowiecki
Genre: Factual/decision making
Readability: OK - although slightly long towards the end

The basic idea of this book is that groups of people often make better decisions than individuals, even if these individuals are experts. Surowiecki makes his argument with a number of different examples, from democracy to the stock market. He also explains the instances where group decision-making processes go wrong, and what can be done to ameliorate them.

The Wisdom of Crowds is well argued and solidly based in science. It has a slight academic bent, which can make a few of the later chapters somewhat heavy to get through, but most of the book is quite readable. Should be of significant interest to people who are interested in political science, in the stock market, or in similar cases of collective decision making.

Blink + The Tipping Point

Titles: Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking and The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference
Author: Malcolm Gladwell
Genre: Factual/business/marketing
Readability: Exceptional - he writes very fluently

Most people have by now heard of The Tipping Point, and with good reason. It is an excellent book, full of ideas and interesting facts, and Gladwell writes very well. I ran into the book in Harvard's wonderful bookstore, The Coop, when visiting my brother in Boston in 2000, only to see it grow into a phenomenon during the next couple of years.

Most of the ideas in the book are not Gladwell's own, but he summarises and connects existing theories with eminent clarity. Everything related to social networks is in here - six degrees of separation, strength of weak ties, critical mass, etc. Definitely a book that will make you think - and especially relevant for people with an interest in marketing, viral and otherwise.

Gladwell's second book, Blink, is equally well written, but contains notably fewer ideas. Instead, he explores his main proposition - that snap judgments are often better than careful analysis - from several different angles, and does so convincingly. A good book, certainly a worthwhile read, but not comparable to The Tipping Point. His occasional articles for The New Yorker are also worth a visit.

The Pillars of the Earth

Title: The Pillars of the Earth
Author: Ken Follett
Genre: Fiction
Readability: Very good - despite the length

Ken Follett normally writes decent-but-not-divine thrillers about secret agents and stuff. Don't hold it against him. This book is his absolute masterpiece, different from everything else he has written, and one of the most captivating fiction books I have ever read. And I am rarely this enthusiastic about books.

In essence, it is about a group of people in medieval times trying to build a church. Not your average sales pitch for a book, I know, but it is nothing short of riveting. I know many people who consider this book one of their favorites. It is long - over 1.000 pages - but don't let that scare you. You will likely breeze through it in a few days.

Enough said. Do yourself a favor and see if you like it.

The Paradox of Choice

Title: The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less
Author: Barry Schwartz
Genre: Factual
Readability: A fast and easy read

The subtitle of this book - 'why more is less' - pretty much sums up the basic point of the book: that we currently have too many options available to us, and that we would be better off if we had fewer things to choose from. This is applied to everything from consumer goods to educational choices. The book parades the value of freedom from choice rather than freedom of choice.

The main idea is that having excessively many options force us to spend more time searching for information and deliberating about the choices that face us. And to top it off, we do not feel happier with our choices. Schwartz claims that the so-called satisficers - people that settle for 'good enough' - are generally happier than the maximisers, who always try to get the very best of everything.

Like many American books of this type, The Paradox of Choice is slightly longer than it should be; it spends quite a lot of time repeating its basic point across different fields. There are some interesting anecdotes and facts in it, though, especially on how people make decisions. Check out this example of how memory works, taken from the book.

Wedellsblog goes live

I love books. They make me feel nice and warm all over. There are very few things better than sitting down with a good book, and none of them can generally be purchased for under 20 EUR.

I have repeatedly tried to transfer this love of books to my friends. For years on end, they could look forward to finding 'Molecular Biology Explained' or 'Arthur Clarke's Greatest Sci-Fi Stories' under the Christmas tree. Only belatedly did I realise that my gifts were not received with the same amount of enthusiasm as, say, a nice sweater or an envelope full of cash.

So now, I have instead decided to start blogging about the books I read. I'll tell you about the good ones, and warn you about the worst ones. On occasion, for the factual books, I'll even provide short summaries so you can pretend to your friends you have read them, too.

Obviously, a number of my first postings will be about books I read a while ago, but the plan is to keep it fairly current. More than a 'favorites' list, I mean this to be an inspiration to people who are interested in the cool new books that come out with some regularity.

Just to warn you: I have somewhat idiosyncratic tastes. For instance, when it comes to fiction, most of the so-called classics doesn't do anything for me; I simply find them too long-winded compared to the standards of contemporary writing. A lot of the supposedly great comtemporary writers are not to my liking, either. I found John Fowles' 'The Magus' completely plotless. Zadie Smith's 'White Teeth' bored me. Of Paul Auster's stuff, the only book I liked is 'The Book of Illusions' - the rest were too pretentious and artificial for me.

As to the world of factual books, this will be somewhat caleidoscopic; I am interested in a very wide range of subjects, from business to brainstorming, from sex to sociology, from economics to evolutionary biology.

Just so you know what to expect. Enjoy the reading.