Taking Out the Trash: March Edition

My thoughts in a sentence or two on a whole slew of books that I have read but not yet commented on. These are all audiobooks and none of them is really trash; it is just that I am a fan of The West Wing and taking out the trash was their office code word for dealing with the little things that keep getting pushed to the bottom of the priority list.

 

Queen Victoria's Matchmaking

by Debora Cadbury

Interesting. Victoria & Albert's plan to unite Europe through strategic marriage was an utter failure. It failed to account for the personalities involved. Three and a half stars

 

---

The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet

by Becky Chambers

I got lost somewhere a long the way. Three stars

 

 

---

Gaudy Night

by Dorothy L. Sayers

It was an interesting glimpse into university life, a world I know nothing about, but it dragged. Three and half stars

---

 

A Shilling for Candles

by Josephine Tey

Disappointing and I don't know why. Three stars

 

Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness

 

by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein (read by Sean Pratt) 

 

 

 

Behavioral Economics welds the fields of Psychology and Economics -- and it is about time we got beyond guns and butter and talked more about how human beings and their decisions effect how microeconomics works in the real world. Thaler and Sunstein are down to earth guys talking about ideas in a down to earth way. They talk about how we make decisions and how we are influenced and motivated by how propositions are framed. They use a lot of real word examples to make things clear to a non-academic audience. Then they get down to brass-tacks and start talking about how their ideas apply to decisions that are made regarding finances, healthcare and our general happiness. They look at decision-making from a consumer point of view and from that of the governments and corporations that are trying to influence decisions. All in all, a very easy introduction to the subject.

Three and a half stars because there are lists of things that I would have skimmed over if I had been eyeballing the text and not listening to it.