Useful analysis of factors affecting decision making, 08 Aug 2008
In this lovely, useful book, Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein examine choices, biases and the limits of human reasoning from a variety of perspectives. They often amuse by disclosing how they have fallen victim to the limitations of thought that they are describing. The fact that these educated, articulate professionals can fool themselves so often demonstrates how tough it is to think clearly, a point the authors emphasize and even repeat. Humans fall prey to systematic errors of judgment, but you can harness this problematic tendency productively, including by helping others make better decisions. Some of the authors' suggestions may not be practical, but many are and all are interesting. getAbstract recommends this book to anyone who wants to know how to shape responsible decisions.

Applying behavioural economics, 31 Jul 2008
Whilst I don't know if this book is quite as significant as is being made out, it's a nice and straightforward primer on behavioural economics and some of its applications.

The first section sets the scene for why nudges - policy interventions that encourage rather than mandate certain types of behaviour - may be necessary. So it builds up the argument for why we aren't the rational self-maximizers that economics has tended to assume we are. This section includes a useful run-through of some of the key heuristics and biases that have been identified and what kind of outcomes they result in. This does provide a pretty good overview of some of the major factors like anchoring, availability, representativeness, loss aversion and so on. It also stresses the importance of the design of choice, or choice architecture, and that in many cases there is no option to be 'neutral' - some kind of structure of choices has to be offered.

The second section is about financial issues, so much of this is familiar ground if you know much about recent pension reform. Still the points are worth reiterating. If you auto-enrol people into a pension most tend not to opt-out. Whereas if you don't auto-enrol many don't join. This, combined with what non-savers say themselves, suggests that non-savers aren't making a rational choice not to save. People also adopt naive diversificaton strategies - the equity content of their asset allocation (if they have made an active choice) will be heavily influenced by the allocations of the funds on offer (and what stocks are popular at the time) and what's more people don't tend to shift their initial allocation. Also it seems pretty clear less in more in fund choices - too many options puts us off choosing.

The section on health has a bit of a US focus, but there is interesting stuff in there. The example of the Part D prescription drugs system is useful if only to demonstrate why a random choice for non-choosers is a bad idea. Also the section on organ donations is worth a read - I think I still favour the assumed consent approach, but the idea of mandatory choice (ie having to state your position on your driving liscence) is at least worth thinking about. Also in this section are some fairly interesting suggestions for nudging people to reduce energy consumption. These are definitely worth a look since they involve, for example, being able to make peer group comparisons. I think this would work on two levels - firstly simple self-interest, wouldn't you be annoyed to know you are spending more on energy than comparable households? Secondly I think it would give people smug points for being more energy efficient.

The fourth section I probably found the least interesting, as it deals with ideas I'm not that impressed by, such as school vouchers. Having said that the idea of privatising marriage is intriguing, if unlikely to happen. Basically they argue that the state should restrict itself to civil partnerships and the legal rights that flow from them, but that 'marriages' could be arranged by other groups. That way churches could choose whether or not they want to carry out same-sex marriages. Equally other organisations could carry them out anyway. That way, the authors argue, no-one's values get compromised but neither are anyone's rights denied.

The final section sketches out some further ideas for nudges, as well as combatting some of the counter arguments that have been put forward. This latter chapter is well worth a read as the authors do a pretty good job at arguing back at some of the half-decent arguments there are out there that challenge them. Some good pro-nudge points here include the one I've already mentioned that often there isn't a neutral option - so the absence of a nudge is a kind of nudge itself. Also it is important that nudges are made explicit, so there is no sense that Government (or whoever else is doing the nudging) is being underhand.

Thaler and Sunstein argue that their approach offers a real 'third way' since it seeks an alternative to both state mandated paths on the one hand and complete laissez-faire on the other. This they call Libertarian Paternalism. That's obviously an Americanism, since in the UK libertarianism of any stripe is not a strong theme in our political culture. As such I don't expect the label to catch on here. However overall the book does provide quite a few ideas for how we could achieve some beneficial behavioural changes without being too heavy-handed. And if you want to get into behavioural economics this probably isn't a bad place to start.

engaging and thought-provoking , 28 Jul 2008
Everyone seems to be talking about this book, and the Tories like it a lot (which may not necessarily be a good sign). The book shows how people often behave in irrational ways and offers some gentle 'nudging' techniques for making them behave more responsibly and sensibly. There are some very entertaining illustrations and examples - I love the story about the urinals at the airport (but I won't go into any more detail here or else I'll spoil it for you.) Sometimes, however, the strategies seem to be a little less subtle than the authors suggest - for example, the idea that there should be a waiting period before people get married. Surely that's a little too much interference? Nevertheless, the book is an excellent and stimulating - and optimistic - read. I recommend it along with a very thought-provoking and entertaining book I've just read - Making Time, which is about understanding and controlling time in our livesMaking Time: Why Time Seems to Pass at Different Speeds and How to Control It.

Useful analysis of factors affecting decision making, 08 Aug 2008
In this lovely, useful book, Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein examine choices, biases and the limits of human reasoning from a variety of perspectives. They often amuse by disclosing how they have fallen victim to the limitations of thought that they are describing. The fact that these educated, articulate professionals can fool themselves so often demonstrates how tough it is to think clearly, a point the authors emphasize and even repeat. Humans fall prey to systematic errors of judgment, but you can harness this problematic tendency productively, including by helping others make better decisions. Some of the authors' suggestions may not be practical, but many are and all are interesting. getAbstract recommends this book to anyone who wants to know how to shape responsible decisions.

Applying behavioural economics, 31 Jul 2008
Whilst I don't know if this book is quite as significant as is being made out, it's a nice and straightforward primer on behavioural economics and some of its applications.

The first section sets the scene for why nudges - policy interventions that encourage rather than mandate certain types of behaviour - may be necessary. So it builds up the argument for why we aren't the rational self-maximizers that economics has tended to assume we are. This section includes a useful run-through of some of the key heuristics and biases that have been identified and what kind of outcomes they result in. This does provide a pretty good overview of some of the major factors like anchoring, availability, representativeness, loss aversion and so on. It also stresses the importance of the design of choice, or choice architecture, and that in many cases there is no option to be 'neutral' - some kind of structure of choices has to be offered.

The second section is about financial issues, so much of this is familiar ground if you know much about recent pension reform. Still the points are worth reiterating. If you auto-enrol people into a pension most tend not to opt-out. Whereas if you don't auto-enrol many don't join. This, combined with what non-savers say themselves, suggests that non-savers aren't making a rational choice not to save. People also adopt naive diversificaton strategies - the equity content of their asset allocation (if they have made an active choice) will be heavily influenced by the allocations of the funds on offer (and what stocks are popular at the time) and what's more people don't tend to shift their initial allocation. Also it seems pretty clear less in more in fund choices - too many options puts us off choosing.

The section on health has a bit of a US focus, but there is interesting stuff in there. The example of the Part D prescription drugs system is useful if only to demonstrate why a random choice for non-choosers is a bad idea. Also the section on organ donations is worth a read - I think I still favour the assumed consent approach, but the idea of mandatory choice (ie having to state your position on your driving liscence) is at least worth thinking about. Also in this section are some fairly interesting suggestions for nudging people to reduce energy consumption. These are definitely worth a look since they involve, for example, being able to make peer group comparisons. I think this would work on two levels - firstly simple self-interest, wouldn't you be annoyed to know you are spending more on energy than comparable households? Secondly I think it would give people smug points for being more energy efficient.

The fourth section I probably found the least interesting, as it deals with ideas I'm not that impressed by, such as school vouchers. Having said that the idea of privatising marriage is intriguing, if unlikely to happen. Basically they argue that the state should restrict itself to civil partnerships and the legal rights that flow from them, but that 'marriages' could be arranged by other groups. That way churches could choose whether or not they want to carry out same-sex marriages. Equally other organisations could carry them out anyway. That way, the authors argue, no-one's values get compromised but neither are anyone's rights denied.

The final section sketches out some further ideas for nudges, as well as combatting some of the counter arguments that have been put forward. This latter chapter is well worth a read as the authors do a pretty good job at arguing back at some of the half-decent arguments there are out there that challenge them. Some good pro-nudge points here include the one I've already mentioned that often there isn't a neutral option - so the absence of a nudge is a kind of nudge itself. Also it is important that nudges are made explicit, so there is no sense that Government (or whoever else is doing the nudging) is being underhand.

Thaler and Sunstein argue that their approach offers a real 'third way' since it seeks an alternative to both state mandated paths on the one hand and complete laissez-faire on the other. This they call Libertarian Paternalism. That's obviously an Americanism, since in the UK libertarianism of any stripe is not a strong theme in our political culture. As such I don't expect the label to catch on here. However overall the book does provide quite a few ideas for how we could achieve some beneficial behavioural changes without being too heavy-handed. And if you want to get into behavioural economics this probably isn't a bad place to start.

engaging and thought-provoking , 28 Jul 2008
Everyone seems to be talking about this book, and the Tories like it a lot (which may not necessarily be a good sign). The book shows how people often behave in irrational ways and offers some gentle 'nudging' techniques for making them behave more responsibly and sensibly. There are some very entertaining illustrations and examples - I love the story about the urinals at the airport (but I won't go into any more detail here or else I'll spoil it for you.) Sometimes, however, the strategies seem to be a little less subtle than the authors suggest - for example, the idea that there should be a waiting period before people get married. Surely that's a little too much interference? Nevertheless, the book is an excellent and stimulating - and optimistic - read. I recommend it along with a very thought-provoking and entertaining book I've just read - Making Time, which is about understanding and controlling time in our livesMaking Time: Why Time Seems to Pass at Different Speeds and How to Control It.


Spookily brilliant, 24 Jun 2008
What a discovery!!! I bought this book as part of some research for my own book and I was very pleasantly surprised.

I never made the connection that Mr Strauss was the co-author of the much lauded Motley Crue's "The Dirt".

Ok, the stories in this book may seem a bit stretched or hard to believe, but hey, it's Americans we are talking about. What I have to say is that reading this book made me look back on my failures and successes at picking women, and it was almost uncanny to read word by word where I went right and wrong.

The Game is a bit of a cross between Queer Eye For The Straight Guy cum Men Are From Mars Women Are From Venus cum any rock and roll tale of debauchery you care to think of.

Interesting but not recommendable for old school romantics out there.

Great, 13 May 2008
This is a great book. Whether you decide to try to use the methods demonstration within the book or not, it makes a great story with mentions of lots of celebrities and hollywood celeb hangouts.

I really enjoyed reading this book, and for the price it is well worth it.



Amazingly Fantastic, and terrible at the same time, 22 Feb 2008
I'm so happy that I read the game. Without it, i'd still be a lonely depressed chump. However, I read it in 2005 and things have moved on, now I have to compare it to books like The Natural Art of Seduction...

The Game is a well-written engaging story. Secondly it exposes a world where men can LEARN how to be better with women. Third, it has some techniques and tricks to actually put things into practice.

The problem is that The Game describes PUA Verson 1.0, the kind where guys looked silly (peacocking), lied (routines, canned material), used silly tricks (magic?!) and basically put on a big fake act.

Just like when smokers thought it wasn't bad for them, before all the studies came out, guys loved this stuff. However, a few years later, cracks started to show:

The guys were great at the first few hours, their acting skills allowed them to get girls that really were out of their league. The problem: They could never keep these girls once the material ran out. Serious guys with interesting lives were becoming someone else when they didn't need to be. Guys were starting to become weird, to view women more and more as objects, and actually not even getting the results they wanted at the end of it.

And then came Pick Up 2.0, the kind that is about building better men, becoming a more attractive person, and over time developing "Natural Game". Sure, you might use some tricks and gimmicks in the first few weeks or months (think training wheels) but soon, all that stuff falls away as you build natural confidence.

The techniques in The Game are not healthy for men or women in the long run, but guys should thank Neil Strauss for bringing this little-known area into the mainstream and giving guys a way to become the person they desperately wished they were.

For a more powerful and moral appraoch, and a book with much more usable technique, check out The Natural Art of Seduction. Both books together would make a great introduction and are probably the best you can do on Amazon for imrpoving your skills with women.

Looks is deceiving, 19 Jan 2008
What impressed me as much as anything about Neil Strauss' lifting of the lid on the world of PUA's (pick up artists) is the quality of the writing. This is so much more than a how to manual (which it isn't really although along the way you learn a bunch of the techniques used by these guys). It's funny as hell, genuinely fascinating and above all a morality tale that is often dismissed by people who haven't read it as being some chauvinistic tract on how to use women to your own ends. It's much more complex that that even if it does paint a portrait of what it often a pretty seedy and vacuous world. Strauss knows this whilst at the same time finding it hard to resist - his reinvention himself as Style, ladies man extraordinaire and general guru to a whole bunch of desperate men, is something that he does not do without misgivings and this is what makes the book interesting and well worth a read.

Useful analysis of factors affecting decision making, 08 Aug 2008
In this lovely, useful book, Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein examine choices, biases and the limits of human reasoning from a variety of perspectives. They often amuse by disclosing how they have fallen victim to the limitations of thought that they are describing. The fact that these educated, articulate professionals can fool themselves so often demonstrates how tough it is to think clearly, a point the authors emphasize and even repeat. Humans fall prey to systematic errors of judgment, but you can harness this problematic tendency productively, including by helping others make better decisions. Some of the authors' suggestions may not be practical, but many are and all are interesting. getAbstract recommends this book to anyone who wants to know how to shape responsible decisions.

Applying behavioural economics, 31 Jul 2008
Whilst I don't know if this book is quite as significant as is being made out, it's a nice and straightforward primer on behavioural economics and some of its applications.

The first section sets the scene for why nudges - policy interventions that encourage rather than mandate certain types of behaviour - may be necessary. So it builds up the argument for why we aren't the rational self-maximizers that economics has tended to assume we are. This section includes a useful run-through of some of the key heuristics and biases that have been identified and what kind of outcomes they result in. This does provide a pretty good overview of some of the major factors like anchoring, availability, representativeness, loss aversion and so on. It also stresses the importance of the design of choice, or choice architecture, and that in many cases there is no option to be 'neutral' - some kind of structure of choices has to be offered.

The second section is about financial issues, so much of this is familiar ground if you know much about recent pension reform. Still the points are worth reiterating. If you auto-enrol people into a pension most tend not to opt-out. Whereas if you don't auto-enrol many don't join. This, combined with what non-savers say themselves, suggests that non-savers aren't making a rational choice not to save. People also adopt naive diversificaton strategies - the equity content of their asset allocation (if they have made an active choice) will be heavily influenced by the allocations of the funds on offer (and what stocks are popular at the time) and what's more people don't tend to shift their initial allocation. Also it seems pretty clear less in more in fund choices - too many options puts us off choosing.

The section on health has a bit of a US focus, but there is interesting stuff in there. The example of the Part D prescription drugs system is useful if only to demonstrate why a random choice for non-choosers is a bad idea. Also the section on organ donations is worth a read - I think I still favour the assumed consent approach, but the idea of mandatory choice (ie having to state your position on your driving liscence) is at least worth thinking about. Also in this section are some fairly interesting suggestions for nudging people to reduce energy consumption. These are definitely worth a look since they involve, for example, being able to make peer group comparisons. I think this would work on two levels - firstly simple self-interest, wouldn't you be annoyed to know you are spending more on energy than comparable households? Secondly I think it would give people smug points for being more energy efficient.

The fourth section I probably found the least interesting, as it deals with ideas I'm not that impressed by, such as school vouchers. Having said that the idea of privatising marriage is intriguing, if unlikely to happen. Basically they argue that the state should restrict itself to civil partnerships and the legal rights that flow from them, but that 'marriages' could be arranged by other groups. That way churches could choose whether or not they want to carry out same-sex marriages. Equally other organisations could carry them out anyway. That way, the authors argue, no-one's values get compromised but neither are anyone's rights denied.

The final section sketches out some further ideas for nudges, as well as combatting some of the counter arguments that have been put forward. This latter chapter is well worth a read as the authors do a pretty good job at arguing back at some of the half-decent arguments there are out there that challenge them. Some good pro-nudge points here include the one I've already mentioned that often there isn't a neutral option - so the absence of a nudge is a kind of nudge itself. Also it is important that nudges are made explicit, so there is no sense that Government (or whoever else is doing the nudging) is being underhand.

Thaler and Sunstein argue that their approach offers a real 'third way' since it seeks an alternative to both state mandated paths on the one hand and complete laissez-faire on the other. This they call Libertarian Paternalism. That's obviously an Americanism, since in the UK libertarianism of any stripe is not a strong theme in our political culture. As such I don't expect the label to catch on here. However overall the book does provide quite a few ideas for how we could achieve some beneficial behavioural changes without being too heavy-handed. And if you want to get into behavioural economics this probably isn't a bad place to start.

engaging and thought-provoking , 28 Jul 2008
Everyone seems to be talking about this book, and the Tories like it a lot (which may not necessarily be a good sign). The book shows how people often behave in irrational ways and offers some gentle 'nudging' techniques for making them behave more responsibly and sensibly. There are some very entertaining illustrations and examples - I love the story about the urinals at the airport (but I won't go into any more detail here or else I'll spoil it for you.) Sometimes, however, the strategies seem to be a little less subtle than the authors suggest - for example, the idea that there should be a waiting period before people get married. Surely that's a little too much interference? Nevertheless, the book is an excellent and stimulating - and optimistic - read. I recommend it along with a very thought-provoking and entertaining book I've just read - Making Time, which is about understanding and controlling time in our livesMaking Time: Why Time Seems to Pass at Different Speeds and How to Control It.


Spookily brilliant, 24 Jun 2008
What a discovery!!! I bought this book as part of some research for my own book and I was very pleasantly surprised.

I never made the connection that Mr Strauss was the co-author of the much lauded Motley Crue's "The Dirt".

Ok, the stories in this book may seem a bit stretched or hard to believe, but hey, it's Americans we are talking about. What I have to say is that reading this book made me look back on my failures and successes at picking women, and it was almost uncanny to read word by word where I went right and wrong.

The Game is a bit of a cross between Queer Eye For The Straight Guy cum Men Are From Mars Women Are From Venus cum any rock and roll tale of debauchery you care to think of.

Interesting but not recommendable for old school romantics out there.

Great, 13 May 2008
This is a great book. Whether you decide to try to use the methods demonstration within the book or not, it makes a great story with mentions of lots of celebrities and hollywood celeb hangouts.

I really enjoyed reading this book, and for the price it is well worth it.



Amazingly Fantastic, and terrible at the same time, 22 Feb 2008
I'm so happy that I read the game. Without it, i'd still be a lonely depressed chump. However, I read it in 2005 and things have moved on, now I have to compare it to books like The Natural Art of Seduction...

The Game is a well-written engaging story. Secondly it exposes a world where men can LEARN how to be better with women. Third, it has some techniques and tricks to actually put things into practice.

The problem is that The Game describes PUA Verson 1.0, the kind where guys looked silly (peacocking), lied (routines, canned material), used silly tricks (magic?!) and basically put on a big fake act.

Just like when smokers thought it wasn't bad for them, before all the studies came out, guys loved this stuff. However, a few years later, cracks started to show:

The guys were great at the first few hours, their acting skills allowed them to get girls that really were out of their league. The problem: They could never keep these girls once the material ran out. Serious guys with interesting lives were becoming someone else when they didn't need to be. Guys were starting to become weird, to view women more and more as objects, and actually not even getting the results they wanted at the end of it.

And then came Pick Up 2.0, the kind that is about building better men, becoming a more attractive person, and over time developing "Natural Game". Sure, you might use some tricks and gimmicks in the first few weeks or months (think training wheels) but soon, all that stuff falls away as you build natural confidence.

The techniques in The Game are not healthy for men or women in the long run, but guys should thank Neil Strauss for bringing this little-known area into the mainstream and giving guys a way to become the person they desperately wished they were.

For a more powerful and moral appraoch, and a book with much more usable technique, check out The Natural Art of Seduction. Both books together would make a great introduction and are probably the best you can do on Amazon for imrpoving your skills with women.

Looks is deceiving, 19 Jan 2008
What impressed me as much as anything about Neil Strauss' lifting of the lid on the world of PUA's (pick up artists) is the quality of the writing. This is so much more than a how to manual (which it isn't really although along the way you learn a bunch of the techniques used by these guys). It's funny as hell, genuinely fascinating and above all a morality tale that is often dismissed by people who haven't read it as being some chauvinistic tract on how to use women to your own ends. It's much more complex that that even if it does paint a portrait of what it often a pretty seedy and vacuous world. Strauss knows this whilst at the same time finding it hard to resist - his reinvention himself as Style, ladies man extraordinaire and general guru to a whole bunch of desperate men, is something that he does not do without misgivings and this is what makes the book interesting and well worth a read.



Useful and fascinating, 25 Aug 2008
As a typical American who drives to work, traffic is a huge part of my life. Why we do what we do (road rage; careless driving; passive-aggressive driving) has fascinated me for years. Vanderbilt is a journalist who went to the experts rather than trying to answer the questions himself. Some of the answers go all the way back to our evolution. Some answers seem intuitively right, if difficult to prove; many seem counter-intuitive, and some have no answers yet.

What puts this book above and beyond what I ordinarily read is how useful it is. I honestly feel I'm a safer driver for having read it and may live longer to read more great books from these insights. I can't recommend it highly enough for anyone who cycles, walks in the vicinity of cars, or drives.

Useful analysis of factors affecting decision making, 08 Aug 2008
In this lovely, useful book, Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein examine choices, biases and the limits of human reasoning from a variety of perspectives. They often amuse by disclosing how they have fallen victim to the limitations of thought that they are describing. The fact that these educated, articulate professionals can fool themselves so often demonstrates how tough it is to think clearly, a point the authors emphasize and even repeat. Humans fall prey to systematic errors of judgment, but you can harness this problematic tendency productively, including by helping others make better decisions. Some of the authors' suggestions may not be practical, but many are and all are interesting. getAbstract recommends this book to anyone who wants to know how to shape responsible decisions.

Applying behavioural economics, 31 Jul 2008
Whilst I don't know if this book is quite as significant as is being made out, it's a nice and straightforward primer on behavioural economics and some of its applications.

The first section sets the scene for why nudges - policy interventions that encourage rather than mandate certain types of behaviour - may be necessary. So it builds up the argument for why we aren't the rational self-maximizers that economics has tended to assume we are. This section includes a useful run-through of some of the key heuristics and biases that have been identified and what kind of outcomes they result in. This does provide a pretty good overview of some of the major factors like anchoring, availability, representativeness, loss aversion and so on. It also stresses the importance of the design of choice, or choice architecture, and that in many cases there is no option to be 'neutral' - some kind of structure of choices has to be offered.

The second section is about financial issues, so much of this is familiar ground if you know much about recent pension reform. Still the points are worth reiterating. If you auto-enrol people into a pension most tend not to opt-out. Whereas if you don't auto-enrol many don't join. This, combined with what non-savers say themselves, suggests that non-savers aren't making a rational choice not to save. People also adopt naive diversificaton strategies - the equity content of their asset allocation (if they have made an active choice) will be heavily influenced by the allocations of the funds on offer (and what stocks are popular at the time) and what's more people don't tend to shift their initial allocation. Also it seems pretty clear less in more in fund choices - too many options puts us off choosing.

The section on health has a bit of a US focus, but there is interesting stuff in there. The example of the Part D prescription drugs system is useful if only to demonstrate why a random choice for non-choosers is a bad idea. Also the section on organ donations is worth a read - I think I still favour the assumed consent approach, but the idea of mandatory choice (ie having to state your position on your driving liscence) is at least worth thinking about. Also in this section are some fairly interesting suggestions for nudging people to reduce energy consumption. These are definitely worth a look since they involve, for example, being able to make peer group comparisons. I think this would work on two levels - firstly simple self-interest, wouldn't you be annoyed to know you are spending more on energy than comparable households? Secondly I think it would give people smug points for being more energy efficient.

The fourth section I probably found the least interesting, as it deals with ideas I'm not that impressed by, such as school vouchers. Having said that the idea of privatising marriage is intriguing, if unlikely to happen. Basically they argue that the state should restrict itself to civil partnerships and the legal rights that flow from them, but that 'marriages' could be arranged by other groups. That way churches could choose whether or not they want to carry out same-sex marriages. Equally other organisations could carry them out anyway. That way, the authors argue, no-one's values get compromised but neither are anyone's rights denied.

The final section sketches out some further ideas for nudges, as well as combatting some of the counter arguments that have been put forward. This latter chapter is well worth a read as the authors do a pretty good job at arguing back at some of the half-decent arguments there are out there that challenge them. Some good pro-nudge points here include the one I've already mentioned that often there isn't a neutral option - so the absence of a nudge is a kind of nudge itself. Also it is important that nudges are made explicit, so there is no sense that Government (or whoever else is doing the nudging) is being underhand.

Thaler and Sunstein argue that their approach offers a real 'third way' since it seeks an alternative to both state mandated paths on the one hand and complete laissez-faire on the other. This they call Libertarian Paternalism. That's obviously an Americanism, since in the UK libertarianism of any stripe is not a strong theme in our political culture. As such I don't expect the label to catch on here. However overall the book does provide quite a few ideas for how we could achieve some beneficial behavioural changes without being too heavy-handed. And if you want to get into behavioural economics this probably isn't a bad place to start.

engaging and thought-provoking , 28 Jul 2008
Everyone seems to be talking about this book, and the Tories like it a lot (which may not necessarily be a good sign). The book shows how people often behave in irrational ways and offers some gentle 'nudging' techniques for making them behave more responsibly and sensibly. There are some very entertaining illustrations and examples - I love the story about the urinals at the airport (but I won't go into any more detail here or else I'll spoil it for you.) Sometimes, however, the strategies seem to be a little less subtle than the authors suggest - for example, the idea that there should be a waiting period before people get married. Surely that's a little too much interference? Nevertheless, the book is an excellent and stimulating - and optimistic - read. I recommend it along with a very thought-provoking and entertaining book I've just read - Making Time, which is about understanding and controlling time in our livesMaking Time: Why Time Seems to Pass at Different Speeds and How to Control It.


Spookily brilliant, 24 Jun 2008
What a discovery!!! I bought this book as part of some research for my own book and I was very pleasantly surprised.

I never made the connection that Mr Strauss was the co-author of the much lauded Motley Crue's "The Dirt".

Ok, the stories in this book may seem a bit stretched or hard to believe, but hey, it's Americans we are talking about. What I have to say is that reading this book made me look back on my failures and successes at picking women, and it was almost uncanny to read word by word where I went right and wrong.

The Game is a bit of a cross between Queer Eye For The Straight Guy cum Men Are From Mars Women Are From Venus cum any rock and roll tale of debauchery you care to think of.

Interesting but not recommendable for old school romantics out there.

Great, 13 May 2008
This is a great book. Whether you decide to try to use the methods demonstration within the book or not, it makes a great story with mentions of lots of celebrities and hollywood celeb hangouts.

I really enjoyed reading this book, and for the price it is well worth it.



Amazingly Fantastic, and terrible at the same time, 22 Feb 2008
I'm so happy that I read the game. Without it, i'd still be a lonely depressed chump. However, I read it in 2005 and things have moved on, now I have to compare it to books like The Natural Art of Seduction...

The Game is a well-written engaging story. Secondly it exposes a world where men can LEARN how to be better with women. Third, it has some techniques and tricks to actually put things into practice.

The problem is that The Game describes PUA Verson 1.0, the kind where guys looked silly (peacocking), lied (routines, canned material), used silly tricks (magic?!) and basically put on a big fake act.

Just like when smokers thought it wasn't bad for them, before all the studies came out, guys loved this stuff. However, a few years later, cracks started to show:

The guys were great at the first few hours, their acting skills allowed them to get girls that really were out of their league. The problem: They could never keep these girls once the material ran out. Serious guys with interesting lives were becoming someone else when they didn't need to be. Guys were starting to become weird, to view women more and more as objects, and actually not even getting the results they wanted at the end of it.

And then came Pick Up 2.0, the kind that is about building better men, becoming a more attractive person, and over time developing "Natural Game". Sure, you might use some tricks and gimmicks in the first few weeks or months (think training wheels) but soon, all that stuff falls away as you build natural confidence.

The techniques in The Game are not healthy for men or women in the long run, but guys should thank Neil Strauss for bringing this little-known area into the mainstream and giving guys a way to become the person they desperately wished they were.

For a more powerful and moral appraoch, and a book with much more usable technique, check out The Natural Art of Seduction. Both books together would make a great introduction and are probably the best you can do on Amazon for imrpoving your skills with women.

Looks is deceiving, 19 Jan 2008
What impressed me as much as anything about Neil Strauss' lifting of the lid on the world of PUA's (pick up artists) is the quality of the writing. This is so much more than a how to manual (which it isn't really although along the way you learn a bunch of the techniques used by these guys). It's funny as hell, genuinely fascinating and above all a morality tale that is often dismissed by people who haven't read it as being some chauvinistic tract on how to use women to your own ends. It's much more complex that that even if it does paint a portrait of what it often a pretty seedy and vacuous world. Strauss knows this whilst at the same time finding it hard to resist - his reinvention himself as Style, ladies man extraordinaire and general guru to a whole bunch of desperate men, is something that he does not do without misgivings and this is what makes the book interesting and well worth a read.



Useful and fascinating, 25 Aug 2008
As a typical American who drives to work, traffic is a huge part of my life. Why we do what we do (road rage; careless driving; passive-aggressive driving) has fascinated me for years. Vanderbilt is a journalist who went to the experts rather than trying to answer the questions himself. Some of the answers go all the way back to our evolution. Some answers seem intuitively right, if difficult to prove; many seem counter-intuitive, and some have no answers yet.

What puts this book above and beyond what I ordinarily read is how useful it is. I honestly feel I'm a safer driver for having read it and may live longer to read more great books from these insights. I can't recommend it highly enough for anyone who cycles, walks in the vicinity of cars, or drives.

Primary English book review, 24 Feb 2003
This book is particularly useful for those doing any teaching degree, but particularly for those who are doing the Ba ed primary teaching with QTS. This book has a range of information on giving knowledge and understanding to those who wish to find out about all the different components of teaching primary English. Such topics that are covered include spellings, early writing, shared writing of fiction and non fiction and aspects of reading, listening and speaking and grammar. This will help any teaching student in their assignments on the teaching of English to primary schools. It also provides comprehensive background information for those who are not aware of all of the aspects of teaching primary English. Soooooo it's definitely worth buuying to get your top marks in your english assignment and to acheive good teaching in schools!

Useful analysis of factors affecting decision making, 08 Aug 2008
In this lovely, useful book, Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein examine choices, biases and the limits of human reasoning from a variety of perspectives. They often amuse by disclosing how they have fallen victim to the limitations of thought that they are describing. The fact that these educated, articulate professionals can fool themselves so often demonstrates how tough it is to think clearly, a point the authors emphasize and even repeat. Humans fall prey to systematic errors of judgment, but you can harness this problematic tendency productively, including by helping others make better decisions. Some of the authors' suggestions may not be practical, but many are and all are interesting. getAbstract recommends this book to anyone who wants to know how to shape responsible decisions.

Applying behavioural economics, 31 Jul 2008
Whilst I don't know if this book is quite as significant as is being made out, it's a nice and straightforward primer on behavioural economics and some of its applications.

The first section sets the scene for why nudges - policy interventions that encourage rather than mandate certain types of behaviour - may be necessary. So it builds up the argument for why we aren't the rational self-maximizers that economics has tended to assume we are. This section includes a useful run-through of some of the key heuristics and biases that have been identified and what kind of outcomes they result in. This does provide a pretty good overview of some of the major factors like anchoring, availability, representativeness, loss aversion and so on. It also stresses the importance of the design of choice, or choice architecture, and that in many cases there is no option to be 'neutral' - some kind of structure of choices has to be offered.

The second section is about financial issues, so much of this is familiar ground if you know much about recent pension reform. Still the points are worth reiterating. If you auto-enrol people into a pension most tend not to opt-out. Whereas if you don't auto-enrol many don't join. This, combined with what non-savers say themselves, suggests that non-savers aren't making a rational choice not to save. People also adopt naive diversificaton strategies - the equity content of their asset allocation (if they have made an active choice) will be heavily influenced by the allocations of the funds on offer (and what stocks are popular at the time) and what's more people don't tend to shift their initial allocation. Also it seems pretty clear less in more in fund choices - too many options puts us off choosing.

The section on health has a bit of a US focus, but there is interesting stuff in there. The example of the Part D prescription drugs system is useful if only to demonstrate why a random choice for non-choosers is a bad idea. Also the section on organ donations is worth a read - I think I still favour the assumed consent approach, but the idea of mandatory choice (ie having to state your position on your driving liscence) is at least worth thinking about. Also in this section are some fairly interesting suggestions for nudging people to reduce energy consumption. These are definitely worth a look since they involve, for example, being able to make peer group comparisons. I think this would work on two levels - firstly simple self-interest, wouldn't you be annoyed to know you are spending more on energy than comparable households? Secondly I think it would give people smug points for being more energy efficient.

The fourth section I probably found the least interesting, as it deals with ideas I'm not that impressed by, such as school vouchers. Having said that the idea of privatising marriage is intriguing, if unlikely to happen. Basically they argue that the state should restrict itself to civil partnerships and the legal rights that flow from them, but that 'marriages' could be arranged by other groups. That way churches could choose whether or not they want to carry out same-sex marriages. Equally other organisations could carry them out anyway. That way, the authors argue, no-one's values get compromised but neither are anyone's rights denied.

The final section sketches out some further ideas for nudges, as well as combatting some of the counter arguments that have been put forward. This latter chapter is well worth a read as the authors do a pretty good job at arguing back at some of the half-decent arguments there are out there that challenge them. Some good pro-nudge points here include the one I've already mentioned that often there isn't a neutral option - so the absence of a nudge is a kind of nudge itself. Also it is important that nudges are made explicit, so there is no sense that Government (or whoever else is doing the nudging) is being underhand.

Thaler and Sunstein argue that their approach offers a real 'third way' since it seeks an alternative to both state mandated paths on the one hand and complete laissez-faire on the other. This they call Libertarian Paternalism. That's obviously an Americanism, since in the UK libertarianism of any stripe is not a strong theme in our political culture. As such I don't expect the label to catch on here. However overall the book does provide quite a few ideas for how we could achieve some beneficial behavioural changes without being too heavy-handed. And if you want to get into behavioural economics this probably isn't a bad place to start.

engaging and thought-provoking , 28 Jul 2008
Everyone seems to be talking about this book, and the Tories like it a lot (which may not necessarily be a good sign). The book shows how people often behave in irrational ways and offers some gentle 'nudging' techniques for making them behave more responsibly and sensibly. There are some very entertaining illustrations and examples - I love the story about the urinals at the airport (but I won't go into any more detail here or else I'll spoil it for you.) Sometimes, however, the strategies seem to be a little less subtle than the authors suggest - for example, the idea that there should be a waiting period before people get married. Surely that's a little too much interference? Nevertheless, the book is an excellent and stimulating - and optimistic - read. I recommend it along with a very thought-provoking and entertaining book I've just read - Making Time, which is about understanding and controlling time in our livesMaking Time: Why Time Seems to Pass at Different Speeds and How to Control It.


Spookily brilliant, 24 Jun 2008
What a discovery!!! I bought this book as part of some research for my own book and I was very pleasantly surprised.

I never made the connection that Mr Strauss was the co-author of the much lauded Motley Crue's "The Dirt".

Ok, the stories in this book may seem a bit stretched or hard to believe, but hey, it's Americans we are talking about. What I have to say is that reading this book made me look back on my failures and successes at picking women, and it was almost uncanny to read word by word where I went right and wrong.

The Game is a bit of a cross between Queer Eye For The Straight Guy cum Men Are From Mars Women Are From Venus cum any rock and roll tale of debauchery you care to think of.

Interesting but not recommendable for old school romantics out there.

Great, 13 May 2008
This is a great book. Whether you decide to try to use the methods demonstration within the book or not, it makes a great story with mentions of lots of celebrities and hollywood celeb hangouts.

I really enjoyed reading this book, and for the price it is well worth it.



Amazingly Fantastic, and terrible at the same time, 22 Feb 2008
I'm so happy that I read the game. Without it, i'd still be a lonely depressed chump. However, I read it in 2005 and things have moved on, now I have to compare it to books like The Natural Art of Seduction...

The Game is a well-written engaging story. Secondly it exposes a world where men can LEARN how to be better with women. Third, it has some techniques and tricks to actually put things into practice.

The problem is that The Game describes PUA Verson 1.0, the kind where guys looked silly (peacocking), lied (routines, canned material), used silly tricks (magic?!) and basically put on a big fake act.

Just like when smokers thought it wasn't bad for them, before all the studies came out, guys loved this stuff. However, a few years later, cracks started to show:

The guys were great at the first few hours, their acting skills allowed them to get girls that really were out of their league. The problem: They could never keep these girls once the material ran out. Serious guys with interesting lives were becoming someone else when they didn't need to be. Guys were starting to become weird, to view women more and more as objects, and actually not even getting the results they wanted at the end of it.

And then came Pick Up 2.0, the kind that is about building better men, becoming a more attractive person, and over time developing "Natural Game". Sure, you might use some tricks and gimmicks in the first few weeks or months (think training wheels) but soon, all that stuff falls away as you build natural confidence.

The techniques in The Game are not healthy for men or women in the long run, but guys should thank Neil Strauss for bringing this little-known area into the mainstream and giving guys a way to become the person they desperately wished they were.

For a more powerful and moral appraoch, and a book with much more usable technique, check out The Natural Art of Seduction. Both books together would make a great introduction and are probably the best you can do on Amazon for imrpoving your skills with women.

Looks is deceiving, 19 Jan 2008
What impressed me as much as anything about Neil Strauss' lifting of the lid on the world of PUA's (pick up artists) is the quality of the writing. This is so much more than a how to manual (which it isn't really although along the way you learn a bunch of the techniques used by these guys). It's funny as hell, genuinely fascinating and above all a morality tale that is often dismissed by people who haven't read it as being some chauvinistic tract on how to use women to your own ends. It's much more complex that that even if it does paint a portrait of what it often a pretty seedy and vacuous world. Strauss knows this whilst at the same time finding it hard to resist - his reinvention himself as Style, ladies man extraordinaire and general guru to a whole bunch of desperate men, is something that he does not do without misgivings and this is what makes the book interesting and well worth a read.



Useful and fascinating, 25 Aug 2008
As a typical American who drives to work, traffic is a huge part of my life. Why we do what we do (road rage; careless driving; passive-aggressive driving) has fascinated me for years. Vanderbilt is a journalist who went to the experts rather than trying to answer the questions himself. Some of the answers go all the way back to our evolution. Some answers seem intuitively right, if difficult to prove; many seem counter-intuitive, and some have no answers yet.

What puts this book above and beyond what I ordinarily read is how useful it is. I honestly feel I'm a safer driver for having read it and may live longer to read more great books from these insights. I can't recommend it highly enough for anyone who cycles, walks in the vicinity of cars, or drives.

Primary English book review, 24 Feb 2003
This book is particularly useful for those doing any teaching degree, but particularly for those who are doing the Ba ed primary teaching with QTS. This book has a range of information on giving knowledge and understanding to those who wish to find out about all the different components of teaching primary English. Such topics that are covered include spellings, early writing, shared writing of fiction and non fiction and aspects of reading, listening and speaking and grammar. This will help any teaching student in their assignments on the teaching of English to primary schools. It also provides comprehensive background information for those who are not aware of all of the aspects of teaching primary English. Soooooo it's definitely worth buuying to get your top marks in your english assignment and to acheive good teaching in schools!

Fantastic layout, imple, yet effective, 17 Aug 2008
At first I thought NLP was some hocus-pocus magic stuff, that didn't really work, but boy did it! I am now able to easiloy create rapport, and I find I communicate a hell of a lot more easily... You have inspired me...!!!!!

Better than I thought it would be, 05 Aug 2008
I started this book with a very cynical view thinking it wouldnt be that good. I was pleasantly surprised though to find it is in fact quite interesting and has many helpful ideas.

The page on looking at a persons eyes to see if they are thinking about the past, present, remembering etc is very accurate. I tried it myself and it seems to work.

Definately a useful book to read and find out more about NLP.

Excellent introduction , 07 Jul 2008
This book is an excellent introduction to NLP and presents all the core concepts in an accurate way. NLP is a very wide-ranging theory but this author has managed to introduce the core framework very cogently. Perhaps there could have been more diagrams and illustrations, and perhaps a little less jargon too - but as NLP has so much of its own terminology it's difficult to see how this could be avoided. I would have liked to read a little more about time perception too, after reading Steve Taylor's excellent book Making Time Making Time: Why Time Seems to Pass at Different Speeds and How to Control It, which looks at why time seems to speed up and slow down (and even completely disappear) in different situations.





Too much detail and not enough 'how to practicality'., 12 May 2008
If u enjoy reading science textbooks or biology books or pages and pages of jargon and talking, then this is for u.if like me ur intrigued by NLP and want a few 'how to' tips then find something more practical. A waste of money.Minimum info on reading body language. A BIG disappointment.

a great introduction to NLP, 12 Feb 2008
This book does exactly what is say on the cover: introducing you to Neuro-Linguistic Programming. i am quite a visual learner and was disappointed by not seeing many pictures in it but i found that the authors have excelled at making the techniques accessible to all. I have read the book in about 4/5 hours and have made notes along the way of techniques to use in my own life. Just a week in, I can already see changes in myself and the way I deal with others.
The only reproach I would make to the book is that it is packed with a lot of information and that ALL the techniques look interesting. I feel that as a reader I did not have enought time to take them in and try them before moving to another aspect of NLP: pace was too fast (hence the note taking in my journal).
I have also purchased NLP workbook by O'Connor (on of the author of Introducing NLP programming) and I like the fact that it has "guided" exercises, on the other hand i found its pace a little too slow for a book for my liking but great for a seminar.
i would thoroughly recommend this book to start NLP but you may need to combine it with a more practical guide for excellent results.

Useful analysis of factors affecting decision making, 08 Aug 2008
In this lovely, useful book, Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein examine choices, biases and the limits of human reasoning from a variety of perspectives. They often amuse by disclosing how they have fallen victim to the limitations of thought that they are describing. The fact that these educated, articulate professionals can fool themselves so often demonstrates how tough it is to think clearly, a point the authors emphasize and even repeat. Humans fall prey to systematic errors of judgment, but you can harness this problematic tendency productively, including by helping others make better decisions. Some of the authors' suggestions may not be practical, but many are and all are interesting. getAbstract recommends this book to anyone who wants to know how to shape responsible decisions.

Applying behavioural economics, 31 Jul 2008
Whilst I don't know if this book is quite as significant as is being made out, it's a nice and straightforward primer on behavioural economics and some of its applications.

The first section sets the scene for why nudges - policy interventions that encourage rather than mandate certain types of behaviour - may be necessary. So it builds up the argument for why we aren't the rational self-maximizers that economics has tended to assume we are. This section includes a useful run-through of some of the key heuristics and biases that have been identified and what kind of outcomes they result in. This does provide a pretty good overview of some of the major factors like anchoring, availability, representativeness, loss aversion and so on. It also stresses the importance of the design of choice, or choice architecture, and that in many cases there is no option to be 'neutral' - some kind of structure of choices has to be offered.

The second section is about financial issues, so much of this is familiar ground if you know much about recent pension reform. Still the points are worth reiterating. If you auto-enrol people into a pension most tend not to opt-out. Whereas if you don't auto-enrol many don't join. This, combined with what non-savers say themselves, suggests that non-savers aren't making a rational choice not to save. People also adopt naive diversificaton strategies - the equity content of their asset allocation (if they have made an active choice) will be heavily influenced by the allocations of the funds on offer (and what stocks are popular at the time) and what's more people don't tend to shift their initial allocation. Also it seems pretty clear less in more in fund choices - too many options puts us off choosing.

The section on health has a bit of a US focus, but there is interesting stuff in there. The example of the Part D prescription drugs system is useful if only to demonstrate why a random choice for non-choosers is a bad idea. Also the section on organ donations is worth a read - I think I still favour the assumed consent approach, but the idea of mandatory choice (ie having to state your position on your driving liscence) is at least worth thinking about. Also in this section are some fairly interesting suggestions for nudging people to reduce energy consumption. These are definitely worth a look since they involve, for example, being able to make peer group comparisons. I think this would work on two levels - firstly simple self-interest, wouldn't you be annoyed to know you are spending more on energy than comparable households? Secondly I think it would give people smug points for being more energy efficient.

The fourth section I probably found the least interesting, as it deals with ideas I'm not that impressed by, such as school vouchers. Having said that the idea of privatising marriage is intriguing, if unlikely to happen. Basically they argue that the state should restrict itself to civil partnerships and the legal rights that flow from them, but that 'marriages' could be arranged by other groups. That way churches could choose whether or not they want to carry out same-sex marriages. Equally other organisations could carry them out anyway. That way, the authors argue, no-one's values get compromised but neither are anyone's rights denied.

The final section sketches out some further ideas for nudges, as well as combatting some of the counter arguments that have been put forward. This latter chapter is well worth a read as the authors do a pretty good job at arguing back at some of the half-decent arguments there are out there that challenge them. Some good pro-nudge points here include the one I've already mentioned that often there isn't a neutral option - so the absence of a nudge is a kind of nudge itself. Also it is important that nudges are made explicit, so there is no sense that Government (or whoever else is doing the nudging) is being underhand.

Thaler and Sunstein argue that their approach offers a real 'third way' since it seeks an alternative to both state mandated paths on the one hand and complete laissez-faire on the other. This they call Libertarian Paternalism. That's obviously an Americanism, since in the UK libertarianism of any stripe is not a strong theme in our political culture. As such I don't expect the label to catch on here. However overall the book does provide quite a few ideas for how we could achieve some beneficial behavioural changes without being too heavy-handed. And if you want to get into behavioural economics this probably isn't a bad place to start.

engaging and thought-provoking , 28 Jul 2008
Everyone seems to be talking about this book, and the Tories like it a lot (which may not necessarily be a good sign). The book shows how people often behave in irrational ways and offers some gentle 'nudging' techniques for making them behave more responsibly and sensibly. There are some very entertaining illustrations and examples - I love the story about the urinals at the airport (but I won't go into any more detail here or else I'll spoil it for you.) Sometimes, however, the strategies seem to be a little less subtle than the authors suggest - for example, the idea that there should be a waiting period before people get married. Surely that's a little too much interference? Nevertheless, the book is an excellent and stimulating - and optimistic - read. I recommend it along with a very thought-provoking and entertaining book I've just read - Making Time, which is about understanding and controlling time in our livesMaking Time: Why Time Seems to Pass at Different Speeds and How to Control It.


Spookily brilliant, 24 Jun 2008
What a discovery!!! I bought this book as part of some research for my own book and I was very pleasantly surprised.

I never made the connection that Mr Strauss was the co-author of the much lauded Motley Crue's "The Dirt".

Ok, the stories in this book may seem a bit stretched or hard to believe, but hey, it's Americans we are talking about. What I have to say is that reading this book made me look back on my failures and successes at picking women, and it was almost uncanny to read word by word where I went right and wrong.

The Game is a bit of a cross between Queer Eye For The Straight Guy cum Men Are From Mars Women Are From Venus cum any rock and roll tale of debauchery you care to think of.

Interesting but not recommendable for old school romantics out there.

Great, 13 May 2008
This is a great book. Whether you decide to try to use the methods demonstration within the book or not, it makes a great story with mentions of lots of celebrities and hollywood celeb hangouts.

I really enjoyed reading this book, and for the price it is well worth it.



Amazingly Fantastic, and terrible at the same time, 22 Feb 2008
I'm so happy that I read the game. Without it, i'd still be a lonely depressed chump. However, I read it in 2005 and things have moved on, now I have to compare it to books like The Natural Art of Seduction...

The Game is a well-written engaging story. Secondly it exposes a world where men can LEARN how to be better with women. Third, it has some techniques and tricks to actually put things into practice.

The problem is that The Game describes PUA Verson 1.0, the kind where guys looked silly (peacocking), lied (routines, canned material), used silly tricks (magic?!) and basically put on a big fake act.

Just like when smokers thought it wasn't bad for them, before all the studies came out, guys loved this stuff. However, a few years later, cracks started to show:

The guys were great at the first few hours, their acting skills allowed them to get girls that really were out of their league. The problem: They could never keep these girls once the material ran out. Serious guys with interesting lives were becoming someone else when they didn't need to be. Guys were starting to become weird, to view women more and more as objects, and actually not even getting the results they wanted at the end of it.

And then came Pick Up 2.0, the kind that is about building better men, becoming a more attractive person, and over time developing "Natural Game". Sure, you might use some tricks and gimmicks in the first few weeks or months (think training wheels) but soon, all that stuff falls away as you build natural confidence.

The techniques in The Game are not healthy for men or women in the long run, but guys should thank Neil Strauss for bringing this little-known area into the mainstream and giving guys a way to become the person they desperately wished they were.

For a more powerful and moral appraoch, and a book with much more usable technique, check out The Natural Art of Seduction. Both books together would make a great introduction and are probably the best you can do on Amazon for imrpoving your skills with women.

Looks is deceiving, 19 Jan 2008
What impressed me as much as anything about Neil Strauss' lifting of the lid on the world of PUA's (pick up artists) is the quality of the writing. This is so much more than a how to manual (which it isn't really although along the way you learn a bunch of the techniques used by these guys). It's funny as hell, genuinely fascinating and above all a morality tale that is often dismissed by people who haven't read it as being some chauvinistic tract on how to use women to your own ends. It's much more complex that that even if it does paint a portrait of what it often a pretty seedy and vacuous world. Strauss knows this whilst at the same time finding it hard to resist - his reinvention himself as Style, ladies man extraordinaire and general guru to a whole bunch of desperate men, is something that he does not do without misgivings and this is what makes the book interesting and well worth a read.



Useful and fascinating, 25 Aug 2008
As a typical American who drives to work, traffic is a huge part of my life. Why we do what we do (road rage; careless driving; passive-aggressive driving) has fascinated me for years. Vanderbilt is a journalist who went to the experts rather than trying to answer the questions himself. Some of the answers go all the way back to our evolution. Some answers seem intuitively right, if difficult to prove; many seem counter-intuitive, and some have no answers yet.

What puts this book above and beyond what I ordinarily read is how useful it is. I honestly feel I'm a safer driver for having read it and may live longer to read more great books from these insights. I can't recommend it highly enough for anyone who cycles, walks in the vicinity of cars, or drives.

Primary English book review, 24 Feb 2003
This book is particularly useful for those doing any teaching degree, but particularly for those who are doing the Ba ed primary teaching with QTS. This book has a range of information on giving knowledge and understanding to those who wish to find out about all the different components of teaching primary English. Such topics that are covered include spellings, early writing, shared writing of fiction and non fiction and aspects of reading, listening and speaking and grammar. This will help any teaching student in their assignments on the teaching of English to primary schools. It also provides comprehensive background information for those who are not aware of all of the aspects of teaching primary English. Soooooo it's definitely worth buuying to get your top marks in your english assignment and to acheive good teaching in schools!

Fantastic layout, imple, yet effective, 17 Aug 2008
At first I thought NLP was some hocus-pocus magic stuff, that didn't really work, but boy did it! I am now able to easiloy create rapport, and I find I communicate a hell of a lot more easily... You have inspired me...!!!!!

Better than I thought it would be, 05 Aug 2008
I started this book with a very cynical view thinking it wouldnt be that good. I was pleasantly surprised though to find it is in fact quite interesting and has many helpful ideas.

The page on looking at a persons eyes to see if they are thinking about the past, present, remembering etc is very accurate. I tried it myself and it seems to work.

Definately a useful book to read and find out more about NLP.

Excellent introduction , 07 Jul 2008
This book is an excellent introduction to NLP and presents all the core concepts in an accurate way. NLP is a very wide-ranging theory but this author has managed to introduce the core framework very cogently. Perhaps there could have been more diagrams and illustrations, and perhaps a little less jargon too - but as NLP has so much of its own terminology it's difficult to see how this could be avoided. I would have liked to read a little more about time perception too, after reading Steve Taylor's excellent book Making Time Making Time: Why Time Seems to Pass at Different Speeds and How to Control It, which looks at why time seems to speed up and slow down (and even completely disappear) in different situations.





Too much detail and not enough 'how to practicality'., 12 May 2008
If u enjoy reading science textbooks or biology books or pages and pages of jargon and talking, then this is for u.if like me ur intrigued by NLP and want a few 'how to' tips then find something more practical. A waste of money.Minimum info on reading body language. A BIG disappointment.

a great introduction to NLP, 12 Feb 2008
This book does exactly what is say on the cover: introducing you to Neuro-Linguistic Programming. i am quite a visual learner and was disappointed by not seeing many pictures in it but i found that the authors have excelled at making the techniques accessible to all. I have read the book in about 4/5 hours and have made notes along the way of techniques to use in my own life. Just a week in, I can already see changes in myself and the way I deal with others.
The only reproach I would make to the book is that it is packed with a lot of information and that ALL the techniques look interesting. I feel that as a reader I did not have enought time to take them in and try them before moving to another aspect of NLP: pace was too fast (hence the note taking in my journal).
I have also purchased NLP workbook by O'Connor (on of the author of Introducing NLP programming) and I like the fact that it has "guided" exercises, on the other hand i found its pace a little too slow for a book for my liking but great for a seminar.
i would thoroughly recommend this book to start NLP but you may need to combine it with a more practical guide for excellent results.

Inspiring...and surprisingly honest!, 29 Jul 2008
What a great read this is.

It is amazing to have such an insight into the man who may soon be President of the USA, arguably still the most powerful position in the world. This book was written even before he became a Senator, I'm sure a lot of what he has written would be edited out if it was published today!

What is so incredible, and I think what makes him seem so personable, is that he comes across as just another ordinary guy. He doesn't come from a famous or affluent background. He talks so openly about the difficulties of growing up as a black man, confused about his origins and what they mean. He grew up in Indonesia and Hawaii... and then worked for very little money as a community organiser. And now he's running for President!

This is a thoroughly enjoyable read and is highly recommended...

Honest and touching, 15 Jul 2008
Given the events unfolding in the US election cycle I wanted to know more about the man many see as the next leader of the free world. I had already read 'Audacity Of Hope' which is basically his manifesto of policies and views and wanted something more personal.
And I wasnt disappointred by this book.
Written around 10 years ago before Obama entered into politics this book is a brilliant autobiography by a man with an amazing life story.
The son of a black Kenyan and a white American, estranged from his father, raised for periods by his grandparents, living for a time in Indonesia and fighting the whole time to find his place in the world - Obama's is a truly unique story.
As Obama says in the new introduction for this reprinted edition the honesty here could never have been shared by a man running for the highest office in the land, so this then the unfilitered view of the mans early life, warts and all.
The book splits his life into three sections: one about his childhood in Hawaii and Indonesia, the mid section about his life as a community organiser in Chicago and finally his trip back to Kenya to reconnect with family and roots and try to gain a sense of who he really is.
Although my life has little in common with Obamas I still found the book to be gripping and inspiring. It also serves to demonstrate a gifted writing style that could easily transfer to great prose. Having read this I hope Obama is elected in November and I look forward to future volumes of autobiography after his second term.

Useful analysis of factors affecting decision making, 08 Aug 2008
In this lovely, useful book, Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein examine choices, biases and the limits of human reasoning from a variety of perspectives. They often amuse by disclosing how they have fallen victim to the limitations of thought that they are describing. The fact that these educated, articulate professionals can fool themselves so often demonstrates how tough it is to think clearly, a point the authors emphasize and even repeat. Humans fall prey to systematic errors of judgment, but you can harness this problematic tendency productively, including by helping others make better decisions. Some of the authors' suggestions may not be practical, but many are and all are interesting. getAbstract recommends this book to anyone who wants to know how to shape responsible decisions.

Applying behavioural economics, 31 Jul 2008
Whilst I don't know if this book is quite as significant as is being made out, it's a nice and straightforward primer on behavioural economics and some of its applications.

The first section sets the scene for why nudges - policy interventions that encourage rather than mandate certain types of behaviour - may be necessary. So it builds up the argument for why we aren't the rational self-maximizers that economics has tended to assume we are. This section includes a useful run-through of some of the key heuristics and biases that have been identified and what kind of outcomes they result in. This does provide a pretty good overview of some of the major factors like anchoring, availability, representativeness, loss aversion and so on. It also stresses the importance of the design of choice, or choice architecture, and that in many cases there is no option to be 'neutral' - some kind of structure of choices has to be offered.

The second section is about financial issues, so much of this is familiar ground if you know much about recent pension reform. Still the points are worth reiterating. If you auto-enrol people into a pension most tend not to opt-out. Whereas if you don't auto-enrol many don't join. This, combined with what non-savers say themselves, suggests that non-savers aren't making a rational choice not to save. People also adopt naive diversificaton strategies - the equity content of their asset allocation (if they have made an active choice) will be heavily influenced by the allocations of the funds on offer (and what stocks are popular at the time) and what's more people don't tend to shift their initial allocation. Also it seems pretty clear less in more in fund choices - too many options puts us off choosing.

The section on health has a bit of a US focus, but there is interesting stuff in there. The example of the Part D prescription drugs system is useful if only to demonstrate why a random choice for non-choosers is a bad idea. Also the section on organ donations is worth a read - I think I still favour the assumed consent approach, but the idea of mandatory choice (ie having to state your position on your driving liscence) is at least worth thinking about. Also in this section are some fairly interesting suggestions for nudging people to reduce energy consumption. These are definitely worth a look since they involve, for example, being able to make peer group comparisons. I think this would work on two levels - firstly simple self-interest, wouldn't you be annoyed to know you are spending more on energy than comparable households? Secondly I think it would give people smug points for being more energy efficient.

The fourth section I probably found the least interesting, as it deals with ideas I'm not that impressed by, such as school vouchers. Having said that the idea of privatising marriage is intriguing, if unlikely to happen. Basically they argue that the state should restrict itself to civil partnerships and the legal rights that flow from them, but that 'marriages' could be arranged by other groups. That way churches could choose whether or not they want to carry out same-sex marriages. Equally other organisations could carry them out anyway. That way, the authors argue, no-one's values get compromised but neither are anyone's rights denied.

The final section sketches out some further ideas for nudges, as well as combatting some of the counter arguments that have been put forward. This latter chapter is well worth a read as the authors do a pretty good job at arguing back at some of the half-decent arguments there are out there that challenge them. Some good pro-nudge points here include the one I've already mentioned that often there isn't a neutral option - so the absence of a nudge is a kind of nudge itself. Also it is important that nudges are made explicit, so there is no sense that Government (or whoever else is doing the nudging) is being underhand.

Thaler and Sunstein argue that their approach offers a real 'third way' since it seeks an alternative to both state mandated paths on the one hand and complete laissez-faire on the other. This they call Libertarian Paternalism. That's obviously an Americanism, since in the UK libertarianism of any stripe is not a strong theme in our political culture. As such I don't expect the label to catch on here. However overall the book does provide quite a few ideas for how we could achieve some beneficial behavioural changes without being too heavy-handed. And if you want to get into behavioural economics this probably isn't a bad place to start.

engaging and thought-provoking , 28 Jul 2008
Everyone seems to be talking about this book, and the Tories like it a lot (which may not necessarily be a good sign). The book shows how people often behave in irrational ways and offers some gentle 'nudging' techniques for making them behave more responsibly and sensibly. There are some very entertaining illustrations and examples - I love the story about the urinals at the airport (but I won't go into any more detail here or else I'll spoil it for you.) Sometimes, however, the strategies seem to be a little less subtle than the authors suggest - for example, the idea that there should be a waiting period before people get married. Surely that's a little too much interference? Nevertheless, the book is an excellent and stimulating - and optimistic - read. I recommend it along with a very thought-provoking and entertaining book I've just read - Making Time, which is about understanding and controlling time in our livesMaking Time: Why Time Seems to Pass at Different Speeds and How to Control It.


Spookily brilliant, 24 Jun 2008
What a discovery!!! I bought this book as part of some research for my own book and I was very pleasantly surprised.

I never made the connection that Mr Strauss was the co-author of the much lauded Motley Crue's "The Dirt".

Ok, the stories in this book may seem a bit stretched or hard to believe, but hey, it's Americans we are talking about. What I have to say is that reading this book made me look back on my failures and successes at picking women, and it was almost uncanny to read word by word where I went right and wrong.

The Game is a bit of a cross between Queer Eye For The Straight Guy cum Men Are From Mars Women Are From Venus cum any rock and roll tale of debauchery you care to think of.

Interesting but not recommendable for old school romantics out there.

Great, 13 May 2008
This is a great book. Whether you decide to try to use the methods demonstration within the book or not, it makes a great story with mentions of lots of celebrities and hollywood celeb hangouts.

I really enjoyed reading this book, and for the price it is well worth it.



Amazingly Fantastic, and terrible at the same time, 22 Feb 2008
I'm so happy that I read the game. Without it, i'd still be a lonely depressed chump. However, I read it in 2005 and things have moved on, now I have to compare it to books like The Natural Art of Seduction...

The Game is a well-written engaging story. Secondly it exposes a world where men can LEARN how to be better with women. Third, it has some techniques and tricks to actually put things into practice.

The problem is that The Game describes PUA Verson 1.0, the kind where guys looked silly (peacocking), lied (routines, canned material), used silly tricks (magic?!) and basically put on a big fake act.

Just like when smokers thought it wasn't bad for them, before all the studies came out, guys loved this stuff. However, a few years later, cracks started to show:

The guys were great at the first few hours, their acting skills allowed them to get girls that really were out of their league. The problem: They could never keep these girls once the material ran out. Serious guys with interesting lives were becoming someone else when they didn't need to be. Guys were starting to become weird, to view women more and more as objects, and actually not even getting the results they wanted at the end of it.

And then came Pick Up 2.0, the kind that is about building better men, becoming a more attractive person, and over time developing "Natural Game". Sure, you might use some tricks and gimmicks in the first few weeks or months (think training wheels) but soon, all that stuff falls away as you build natural confidence.

The techniques in The Game are not healthy for men or women in the long run, but guys should thank Neil Strauss for bringing this little-known area into the mainstream and giving guys a way to become the person they desperately wished they were.

For a more powerful and moral appraoch, and a book with much more usable technique, check out The Natural Art of Seduction. Both books together would make a great introduction and are probably the best you can do on Amazon for imrpoving your skills with women.

Looks is deceiving, 19 Jan 2008
What impressed me as much as anything about Neil Strauss' lifting of the lid on the world of PUA's (pick up artists) is the quality of the writing. This is so much more than a how to manual (which it isn't really although along the way you learn a bunch of the techniques used by these guys). It's funny as hell, genuinely fascinating and above all a morality tale that is often dismissed by people who haven't read it as being some chauvinistic tract on how to use women to your own ends. It's much more complex that that even if it does paint a portrait of what it often a pretty seedy and vacuous world. Strauss knows this whilst at the same time finding it hard to resist - his reinvention himself as Style, ladies man extraordinaire and general guru to a whole bunch of desperate men, is something that he does not do without misgivings and this is what makes the book interesting and well worth a read.



Useful and fascinating, 25 Aug 2008
As a typical American who drives to work, traffic is a huge part of my life. Why we do what we do (road rage; careless driving; passive-aggressive driving) has fascinated me for years. Vanderbilt is a journalist who went to the experts rather than trying to answer the questions himself. Some of the answers go all the way back to our evolution. Some answers seem intuitively right, if difficult to prove; many seem counter-intuitive, and some have no answers yet.

What puts this book above and beyond what I ordinarily read is how useful it is. I honestly feel I'm a safer driver for having read it and may live longer to read more great books from these insights. I can't recommend it highly enough for anyone who cycles, walks in the vicinity of cars, or drives.

Primary English book review, 24 Feb 2003
This book is particularly useful for those doing any teaching degree, but particularly for those who are doing the Ba ed primary teaching with QTS. This book has a range of information on giving knowledge and understanding to those who wish to find out about all the different components of teaching primary English. Such topics that are covered include spellings, early writing, shared writing of fiction and non fiction and aspects of reading, listening and speaking and grammar. This will help any teaching student in their assignments on the teaching of English to primary schools. It also provides comprehensive background information for those who are not aware of all of the aspects of teaching primary English. Soooooo it's definitely worth buuying to get your top marks in your english assignment and to acheive good teaching in schools!

Fantastic layout, imple, yet effective, 17 Aug 2008
At first I thought NLP was some hocus-pocus magic stuff, that didn't really work, but boy did it! I am now able to easiloy create rapport, and I find I communicate a hell of a lot more easily... You have inspired me...!!!!!

Better than I thought it would be, 05 Aug 2008
I started this book with a very cynical view thinking it wouldnt be that good. I was pleasantly surprised though to find it is in fact quite interesting and has many helpful ideas.

The page on looking at a persons eyes to see if they are thinking about the past, present, remembering etc is very accurate. I tried it myself and it seems to work.

Definately a useful book to read and find out more about NLP.

Excellent introduction , 07 Jul 2008
This book is an excellent introduction to NLP and presents all the core concepts in an accurate way. NLP is a very wide-ranging th