Two interesting books

I like to read books that illuminate new facts about the mind and human personality. I recently read two such books, one of which I talked about briefly on our technology blog, Click: What Millions of People Are Doing Online and Why It Matters by Bill Tancer. If you have an interest in online data and what it reflects about people, you should read this book. Tancer produces lots of insight on human behavior, just from what we click on and search for the most.

Snoop: What Your Stuff Says About You by Sam Gosling is another good one. Gosling explores the different items you keep around you and what they say about your personality. He identifies five main personality types (you can take an assessment of these types at this site). I actually scored very high on all of the types--I'm not sure what that says about me! The book talks about different site studies of personal spaces, as well as analyses of handshakes, music, and other pop culture likes and dislikes. A chapter on stereotypes was fascinating, particularly because Gosling singles out a "librarian type." He says there's a reason librarians gravitate to our jobs, and chatty people probably don't do so well in libraries! I don't know how I feel about that, being chatty and extraverted myself.