Thinking - Fast and Slow

Did you have the same problem as a teenager when it came to career choices like I did? I just couldn’t decide which way to go as I had so many different interests and every choice seemed to neglect most of them.  For a few months I thought I wanted to become a doctor. (My family was very enthusiastic about it, I got several 2 kilo-books for my birthday, in order to prepare me for my medicine studies…) I lost interest however when it became clear to me what life as a doctor meant: either long hours in the hospital and never having any freetime, or seeing the same old ladies again and again, complaining about their cough, their headaches, etc. while all they really needed was company. Well, that didn’t sound like my kind of plan.

I decided to study media science and English and I don’t regret it, as it is such a wide field, that I can do anything (and nothing) with it. Being someone who is getting bored quite easily I guess it was a handy choice. There is a part of me however who has always wanted to study psychology. The human mind (or also the animal mind) is such a fascinating field of study, I love to read books and articles about rationality (or rather the lack of it), differences / similarities between the sexes and different age groups, you name it.

One book I recently detected (still reading it. I have to admit, I am a cross-reader, meaning I am always reading several books at the same time. Normally it is a non-fiction one and a novel, so I can switch, depending on my mood – as told above, I get bored easily.) is “Thinking – Fast and slow” by Daniel Kahnemann. I hadn’t heard of him before, but it was lying around at a friend’s apartment and once I had read the preface I was hooked.

Kahnemann differentiates between two kinds of thinking (as the title suggests, dah) “fast” and “slow”. The fast thinking (System I) reminds a bit of intuition, it is the instinct, emotional response and doesn’t cost much effort. The slow thinking (System II) on the other hand is more rational and costs effort, which is why the fast thinking dominates. Most decisions need to be made instantly (taking a step to the side to avoid running into someone, e.g.; ), driving is a good example. In drivers school everything is incredibly hard and our brain feels overloaded with all the gear-shifting, braking and turning at the same time (while trying to avoid running someone over). With a bit of practice driving becomes more intuitive though and we almost instantly decide when to shift gear, when to stop, when to go on and so on. Parking however might always be something that takes some effort, and System II needs to take over. The division makes sense and explains a lot of phenomena, that Kahnemann describes in his book. Take a look at the famous example (almost everyone knows the “mistake” we make here)

Even though you know that the lines have the same length (System II working here), System I dominates the brain and makes you feel as if they are not.

Kahnemann also describes the anchoring effect, especially interesting for people who work in marketing. People make irrational and illogical assumptions, depending on the presentation of the problem. When asked whether they think it probable that a bad catastrophe will hit somewhere in the US, within the next ten years, killing more than 10.000 people, most people think this highly improbable.  When you ask whether they think it probable that a bad earthquake could hit California and kill more than 10.000 people within the next 10 years (which should be included in the first scenario), much more people think it likely to happen. All of us know about the forecasts of another bad earthquake in the area being overdue and so on, so the irrationality seems to make some sense and most of us would have made this mistake.

I like about Daniel Kahnemann that while he is certainly a very self-reflective mind, (thinking about decision-making so much should make you able to make more rational ones, shouldn’t it) he still likes to tell about his own mistakes and appears to be quite modest.

I can highly recommend his book, it is one of the most intriguing read I have had in a long time and it definitely makes me see my surroundings somehow differently.

books... the best way to forget about reality for a while

The joy of reading has almost always been with me and I deeply pity everyone who doesn't feel the magic of books. I might sound shallow, that they can take you anywhere you want, without even leaving you cozy bed / livingroom / hanging basket, whatever. But it is true.
Being able to read was a pretty early desire in my life, probably as my mom is a big reader, and I somehow managed to learn it by myself, by always asking which word meant what. Since then it has been a great journey with everything from Enid Blyton to the three investigators (apparently only big in Germany) to Agatha Christie (oh, how I enjoyed the Miss Marple novels) and Thomas Harris. You can see from this list that I have been a big crime-novel fan and am to this day. (Although I also enjoy autobiographies, travel-literature, historic stories and much more, I want to dedicate this blog entry to crime thrillers I have read and enjoyed during the last years.

During the years of my studies I always had to read so much for university, books piling up everywhere in my room and never enough time, that reading for fun was not as fun anymore. I still did it from time to time, but mostly while traveling (also not a lot of free time) and always with a bit of a bad conscience, as I should have been reading Niklas Luhmann instead of Stephen King or others.

My first action after the writing of my Masterthesis: buying a novel, sitting down in a cafe and reading for hours and I still know which novel it was:

The Chemistry of Death by Simon Beckett

For along time no novel had gripped me that hard, not letting go till the end of the last page. Beckett describes the single parts of Britain his David Hunter-novels take place with such an energy, I always feel like I was there, tasting the sea, smelling Dartmoor, listening to the rural speech. As I have traveled some of England I could of course go back in time and just memorize everything, but Beckett takes you to England and in one case, the U.S., no matter whether you have been there or not. Suspense to the end, with a more than Hollywood-worth ending, that is what Simon Becketts novels are for me. Due to the job of their main character (forensic anthropologist) the books might be too gory for the thin-skinned, but growing up watching The X-Files I guess I have been toughened when it comes to this. The other novels of the series are just as - if nor even more - awesome. I guess my favourite so far is "The Calling of the Grave", which was released in 2010. I hope there will be another novel soon. Does anyone know about it?

Coming from that X-Files, Enid Blyton and Miss Marple background, I seem to prefer detective-series (although this old-fashioned term does not seem too accurate for Simon Beckett and the following:)

Due to coincidence I started reading novels by Mo Hayder: 

Birdman by Mo Hayder

Gruesome in almost the same way as the David Hunter models, if not more so. Detective Jack Caffery reminds me as well of the lone wolf, David Hunter is, although Hunter is maybe more likeable from the beginning. Hayder is also less shocking due to her visual desciptions, but I would say more due to her pervert ideas, playing with the emotion of characters and readers alike. Like the above series, Mo Hayders' novels are not recommended for people of a too sensitive kind. Plus they differ from Beckett's novels in depicting more of straightforward police work as Caffery works as a DI. The beauty of England again, I seem to go for these, as also my reading-biography suggests. The South of England seems to be a very dangerous place...

A much more American approach to the term "thriller" you find in the following series, which is already quite old, but I just discovered it about a year ago (A few months before the movie came out, with one of the worst castings in cinema history, which is why I haven't watched it till this day. Movies based on novels is a tricky chapter itself, probably worth a blog on it's own.) The Jack Reacher series by Lee Child consist of stunning stories, well researched and always of breathtaking speech. It is almost impossible to stop reading the novels. Characters aren't depicted deeply and all in all it feels a bit like Fast Food, but sometimes this is just what you need. Usually Reacher would be too much of a superhero for me, but the stories are so cunning, surprising and well written that I do not care much about his strength, height, power, skills. 

Killing Floor by Lee Child

Start with "Killing Floor" if you are interested. It is the first one and it makes sense to do so. My favourite so far - though I haven't read them all - is "Die Trying" the second one.

I like blogs with the one or other reading recommendation. Especially if you read blogs and you happen to have the same taste as the author in many things like fashion, food, decoration, a.s.o. taking reading advice probably is not a bad idea. So I might share some other great novels I love. As I infected many people with watching Louis Theroux's docus and as I consider this a very good achievement, why not bring the joy of reading into lifes of others as well... Any recommendations?