The Invisible Gorilla and Other Ways Our Intuitions Deceive Us by Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons

(Crown, 2010)

Chabris and Simons shared the 2004 IG Nobel Prize in psychology for their now famous “Gorilla Experiment”. While teaching at Harvard 12 years ago, this single experiment launched a whole new wave of ideas on how we think about ourselves, our judgments, our reactions, and our intentions. Invisible Gorilla sheds light on the traps that we unknowingly lead ourselves into, not knowing that these traps even exist.  Hopefully reading this book will help us to become clearer thinkers and thus prevent problems caused by our erroneous views of reality.

Invisible Gorilla is focused on six everyday illusions that profoundly influence our lives. The illusions of:

1) Attention: Our overestimation of our intelligence, attractiveness, sense of humor, etc.

2) Memory: Our recollection of events based loosely on reality.

3) Confidence: Our self-assurance confusing confidence with competence.

4) Knowledge: We know less than we think we do.

5) Cause: We mistake correlation for causation.

6) Potential: Loosing sight of our limitations.

The authors explain in detail how these illusions affect us, the consequences they have and how we can overcome or minimize their impact.

I especially enjoyed the ending chapters. “Get Smart Quick” explores our misconception about perceived healthy mental habits: listening to Mozart makes you smarter or working crosswords prevents Alzheimer’s disease. This chapter does confirm our need for aerobic exercise and that blood flow to the brain and physical health may be our best tools for healthy mental awareness.

Chabris and Simons acknowledge in the conclusion the immense trust we have in ourselves and how difficult it is to be honest with our internal reactions and judgments. The Invisible Gorilla is a tool to help us tune up our daily mental vehicle allowing our physical self to run more smoothly.

“Those who do not have power over the story that dominates their lives, power to retell it, rethink it, deconstruct it, joke about it, and change it as times change, truly are powerless, because they cannot think new thoughts.” (Salman Rushdie, “One Thousand Days in a Balloon,” New York Times, December 12, 1991)

This was the opening quote to a book entitled The Story of Your Life by Mandy Aftel. I chose this book to read on the craft of memoir for a course I took years ago entitled Women’s Lives. I really had no idea what it was about. I knew it would involve writing and women and a well-loved teacher named Polly Glover. That was enough for my nineteen-year-old self but I still reap the benefits of this course over ten years later.

Reading Mary Karr’s memoirs has been the perfect excuse to delve back into this world. I had always heard of Karr and Liars’ Club, but I kind of shy away from stuff everybody’s reading and wait until the hullabaloo passes. How lucky was I when I learned that Mary Karr was coming to Lemuria and I could read all three of her memoirs? . . . a course in one woman’s life. So I began to wonder why memoirs appeal to so many people. What was it about Karr that caused such a strong response from readers? Was it just another rough childhood story or was it something more, something that would endure?

The 10th anniversary edition of The Liars’ Club includes an introduction by Karr, a reflection on the response to Liars’ Club over the past ten years. Karr writes:

“If The Liars’ Club began as a love letter to my less-than-perfect clan, it spawned (on its own terms) love letters from around the world. Its publication constructed for me–in midlife, unexpectedly–what I hankered for so desperately for as a dreamy kid comforted only by reading: that mythic village of like-minded souls who bloom together by sharing old tales–the kind that fire you up and set you loose, the true kind.” (xvi)

I wish I had more time write on this subject matter for there are so many women writers who have shared, who have bared all, blazed new trails, who have opened the door to discussion on many taboo topics, who have created community through their words. Maya Angelo, Anaïs Nin, Simone de Beauvoir, Virgina Woolf, Anne Moody, Alice Walker . . . and Mary Karr. They are mothers and sisters and friends and mentors when there is a space to be filled, their words wait for the open door.

Sometimes, when I have something tough to do and when space allows (no, a Kindle won’t do), I put the only thing I have tangible from these women in my bag, Maya Angelou’s Letter to my Daughter, Simone de Beauvoir’s The Prime of Life, Alice Walker’s The Way Forward Is with a Broken Heart and In Search of Our Mother’s Gardens. Like Karr writes, it is some sort of mini-village I carry with me, a group of women who feed a confidence and bravery to move forward. The essayist Kennedy Fraser expresses a similar need:

“I felt very lonely then, self-absorbed, shut off. I needed all this murmured chorus, this continuum of true-life stories, to pull me through. They were like mothers and sisters to me, these literary women, many of them already dead; more than my own family, they seemed to stretch out a hand.”

You are invited to meet Mary Karr this coming Wednesday for a signing and reading at 5:00 and 5:30 respectively. Her third memoir, Lit, is now out in paperback.

Click here for Billie’s blog posting on Lit.

I can’t, anyway.

A few weeks ago my wife and I got a standard poodle puppy. We had plenty of opinions and ideas (no froo-froo poodle haircuts for this guy!), but we realized there were plenty of things that we didn’t have settled in our minds. Even basic things — house training, for example — can get very frustrating if you are inconsistently applying different methods and ideas at the same time. We realized that, as with much in life, what we really needed was a good book.

There’s plenty of material about dog training out there, but we wanted something specific — straightforward, no-nonsense, easy to understand and apply. Books about dog psychology are fascinating, and I can appreciate the unique approach of the more esoteric puppy whisperers. But we wanted something that cut out all the unnecessary theory and boiled it down to just the essentials: some clear instructions that we could follow.

After asking around and looking at a few different books, I hit on Before and After Getting Your Puppy, by Ian Dunbar. It’s actually two previous books (Before Getting Your Puppy and…10 points if you can guess the title of the other book) bound together in a nice hardcover format. You know how some cookbooks are bound as hardcovers with glossy boards and no dustjacket, so you can use it in the kitchen and just wipe it off if it gets dirty? Same idea here, and they managed to keep the price down to $19.95 which is great for a hardcover — especially after heading to the pet store for a new collar, leash, food and water bowls, extra puppy food, some new treats, dog toys, replacement clippers after the old one burns out, trips to the vet for shots, trips to the vet for upset puppy tummy…

The book is structured perfectly — it’s broken down into “developmental deadlines” — so you can follow along, week by week, and keep track of what your puppy (and you) should be learning and working on. Dunbar is explicitly clear about what behavior is normal (and can be ignored) and what behavior is a sign of bad things to come (and needs to be addressed quickly).

Something else I really appreciated is that the language of the book, while it is written for a committed and willing owner, never assumes an advanced level of understanding or some previous experience of the reader. I’m familiar with some of the ideas and training methods, since I grew up with dogs all my life and have read about dog training before. But I still appreciated the clear explanations — and found that some of the things I thought I understood, I really didn’t.

A new puppy is great fun, but the funny puppy misbehavior can quickly become a huge hassle and annoyance as the dog grows older…and too frequently, what results is another “bad dog” in the city shelter hoping for a rescuer. Hoping that you just end up with a good dog occasionally works, but there’s no reason to leave it up to luck — put in some good work early on and you vastly increase your chances of getting a “good dog” — because you will be a good owner.

I probably shouldn’t admit this, but I hated Ernest Hemingway all the way through high school and college.  (I place the blame on a bad experience with a 9th grade research paper on A Farewell to Arms) I have, however, decided to give Mr. Hemingway another chance to impress me, and this time I think he just might have succeeded.  I’m about halfway finished withThe Garden of Eden, a posthumously published novel about the relationship between American writer David Bourne and his young wife Catherine.

This novel examines interchangeability of gender roles, which for Catherine and David takes a dangerous turn when they both fall in love with the same woman.  That grabbed your attention, didn’t it?  There is, of course, much more to say about the themes in this novel (as well as the controversy over its editing), but for your sake,  I’m going to spare you my tendency to be a literature geek and let you explore these themes yourself. If you’re a Hemingway fan, and you haven’t read this yet, give it a try.  If you’re not a Hemingway fan, maybe this will win you over like it did me.   As soon as I’m finished with this novel, I can’t wait to get my hands on the newest edition of A Moveable Feast (See Lisa’s blog on that here)

Also be sure to check out our valuable Hemingway first editions. 

-Kaycie

There is a special category of non-fiction books that I call just simply great books. You know the ones that you read and you don’t think “this is a book for a gardening person, or a sports fan, or the outdoor type” but instead you say this is a great book. Like I said this category is the “great books” category. In the store I created a section called “culture” – in the beginning it was secretly my way of keeping all of the books I like or want to read in the same place so I either won’t forget to sell them or forget to read them. Examples would be Into the Wild, Class by Paul Fussell, Suburban Nation, Fast Food Nation –  one of those types of really great books is Blind Side by Michael Lewis. When non-reader friends started to tell me about this book I took their advice and picked it up. Way before there was a movie Blind Side was clearly identified as one of those “great” books. Why? First, I think it’s very human without being cheesy and second because it takes something we (I) love – i.e. football and enhances it/makes it better. I want to read the book again before football season because I think it will make me enjoy football even more to have re-read it – that’s the kind of thing that makes a great book great.

But also it’s a book about real people. These real people made a decision, seemingly effortlessly so, to adopt Michael Oher. This decision obviously changed their lives and his. Now we have the unique opportunity of learning what lead them to that choice. What decisions did they make years and years ago that led them to the choice to adopt someone who seemed so different from themselves. This wasn’t a little baby but a nearly grown man. They made a difference – a tangible difference. I, for one, am interested to read the book and to meet the Tuohy’s. We’ll get that chance as In a Heartbeat will be out next week and the Tuohy’s will be here signing on July 21 starting at 4:00.