The Invisible Gorilla, by Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons

A few months ago, I listened to a pretty interesting book on CD called How We Decide. I liked it, it was an interesting topic, but by the end of the CD I was all, "I am going to pistol-whip the next guy that says 'pre-frontal cortex.'"

Basically, you could go to that review, swap out the titles, and replace "pre-frontal cortex" with "illusion" and you've got my review of this book.

Don't get me wrong, it was good for the first five or six hours (out of nine-ish?) that Scott and I listened to it on our drive from Cleveland to Jacksonville. The title story is really the best, and there are a lot of other good examples of people overestimating themselves or being overestimated by people — the book is basically about how we think we're awesome at remembering things or at talking on cell phones while driving, but we are so not.

But then it starts getting old, and THEN the authors go into a diatribe about how you should totally get your kids vaccinated, which I agree with but man, I was starting to think about not vaccinating my hypothetical children out of spite. It was seriously annoying.

Once we weren't stuck in the car anymore, it was hard to get up the will to finish this book, but we did, and it does end on a good note. But like How We Decide, I would highly recommend getting it in book form so that you can skim the super annoying and super boring parts.

Rating: 7/10
(Countdown Challenge: 2010, Support Your Local Library Challenge)

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Pass me yours, if you've got 'em.

The Oxford Project, by Peter Feldstein and Stephen G. Bloom (8 June)

I saw a bit about this book on the NPR website (here) and immediately put this book on the hold list at the library. I thought it would be neat to see some pictures taken 20 years apart of people in a small town in Iowa. I was right, but be warned! When I tried to find the book on my library's holds shelf, I couldn't — it was too big and was stacked elsewhere where it could fit. This is a large book. Almost 300 pages, something like 10" by 13" in size... I needed a bigger bag. :)

But it is really cool! If you didn't check out the above link already, here's the deal: Peter Feldstein, a professor at the University of Iowa, set up his camera in his adopted hometown of Oxford, Iowa in 1984 and asked all of the residents to come in and get a picture taken. Six hundred seventy did. Feldstein had a small showing, then threw all the photos in a cabinet and forgot about them. In 2005, he decided to track down all of his subjects and photograph them again, this time with the help of Stephen Bloom to take down the residents' stories and put them all in this giant book.

The stories range from fairly boring to scandalous (stripping in Phoenix, Arizona?! Oh my!). They are organized more or less by family, though not everyone is chronicled (and thank goodness, that would be a lot of anecdotes!). It's interesting to me, being the suburb-dweller I am, that so many of these families are deeply connected and that many of the people interviewed were glad simply to graduate high school.

Also, the scary buckskinning-guy-cum-preacher makes me giggle every time I see his picture.

Rating: 8/10
(Support Your Local Library Challenge)

The Likeness, by Tana French (18 November — 21 November)

Just go read this book right now. Seriously. Well, actually, read In the Woods first, and then read this one.

The Likeness is vaguely related to its predecessor, In the Woods, in that the main character in this new one, Cassie Maddox, was a secondary character in the first one and sometimes references the events of the first book. You could definitely read them out of order, but I really think I liked this one so much because of the way it follows off the first.

Anyway, what we have here is Cassie Maddox, a recent-ish transfer from Dublin's murder squad to its domestic violence squad, called in on a murder case because, well, the girl that got murdered looks exactly like her. Also, the girl is identified as Lexie Madison, the name that Cassie used during an undercover operation a long time ago. Cassie is naturally drawn to the weird coincidence of it all, and when her old undercover boss asks her to pretend to be a recovered Lexie for a while to find out who killed her, Cassie's in.

It's not easy, of course; Lexie lived with her four best friends who knew nearly everything about each other, and it could have been one of them who stabbed Lexie. As Cassie settles in to her undercover role, she also settles in to her Lexie role and loses that objectivity that is so necessary to solving the case.

This book. Was. AWESOME. Whenever I wasn't reading it, I was wondering what was happening to Cassie and how the heck she was going to pull it off. I was very seriously anxious about getting back to read the book as soon as possible. If that's not a good recommendation, I don't know what is.

Rating: 10/10
(Countdown Challenge: 2008)

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, by David Wroblewski (10 November — 16 November)

I put this book on hold at the library some very long time ago, after I heard an interview with the author on NPR and thought the book sounded decent. I finally got it last week, and was possibly over-excited to read it.

The premise of the book is a sort of updated version of Hamlet. Edgar Sawtelle is a mute 14-year-old who breeds dogs with his family in far northern Wisconsin. His uncle, Claude, comes back into the family after a long leave of absence, but sibling rivalry sort of explodes and Edgar's father, Gar, sends Claude away. Soon enough, though, Gar ends up dead in the kennel and Claude starts moving in on his sister-in-law. Gar's ghost tells Edgar that Claude is the murderer, but Edgar can't tell anyone — not just because he can't speak but because he's pretty sure they won't believe him.

More Hamlet happens — the Polonius character dies, Edgar goes off on an adventure, et cetera.

And I think that's my problem with the book. I liked the beginning of the novel, wherein we learned about training dogs and Edgar's relationship with his mother. I liked the part when Edgar runs away and has a great woodsy adventure with his dogs. But I didn't like the parts where I said to myself, "Oh, look, Polonius is dead now! And hey, I thought Laertes was supposed to kill Hamlet!"

Ah, well. It doesn't follow Hamlet to the letter (see Laertes comment), so there's quite a bit of wondering how the plot will turn out, which is good. And those parts that I liked, I really did like. I just don't think that the book as a whole really fit together well.

Definitely a good read if you're a Hamlet scholar or dog enthusiast.

Rating: 6/10
(Countdown Challenge: 2008)

In the Woods, by Tana French (31 October — 1 November)

What a great book! Just go read it.

Our narrator, Rob Ryan, was found in the woods at the age of twelve with blood in his shoes and without the two friends he was meant to be with. He has no memory of what happened, and has mostly gotten along in life, until now.

Now Ryan is a detective who is put on a dead-twelve-year-old case in the same tiny Ireland neighborhood he once lived in, in the same woods he was once found in. He hopes both that the case is and isn't related to his, but it doesn't really matter — this murder is practically unsolveable. All leads point to nothing, there are no suspects, and Ryan is having a bit of trouble keeping himself distanced from the case.

Of course, then something clicks and the mystery unravels, and you see all the clues you should have seen before, and the solution is pretty darn cool. I'm definitely excited to read the next in the series, The Likeness.

Rating: 9/10
(Countdown Challenge: 2007)