dancerjodi

A co-worker had asked me if I had read this book, but I hadn't heard of it. Then I was at a party a couple of weeks ago talking about Henry Rollins and his skit about what he'd do if he was president involving fabulous gay men breaking up the KKK, and someone else mentioned the book. I decided I had to read it.

Being a sociologist, I'm no stranger to reading data sets, analyzing things, looking at regression analysis, the difference between relationships and causation, and unexpected underlying elements. I think the goal of this book is for people to look at things critically and understand the potential underlying motivations of people or organizations. As such, though I learned a few interesting things in the book (about cheating in sumo wrestling, someone making an ass out of the KKK by spying and then contributing to superman episodes where superman fights the KKK revealing secret details of the group, the connection between crime drops 20 years after Roe v. Wade) I wasn't as blown away by this book as I thought I would be. The description was quite tempting, and as I stood in the Harvard Coop a couple of days before Xmas and read the book jacket to Brian he commented "Wow, I might even want to read this". Unless you like numbers, I don't think so.

It was enjoyable, just didn't grab me as much as I expected (I wonder how much of this is because the book isn't that exciting, or if its because the concepts just aren't that novel to me given my academic background). Would anyone like to take from me to read next? I see no need to hang onto it (but I bought it because there was no chance in getting from the library any time soon). I could bring it to goffee tomorrow.

Wow, only 1/4 and I'm done with book #2. After reading a self help book on organizing and an economics lite one I'm on to something fluffy - a memoir of an old metalhead that I can't recall the title of.