Why People Believe Weird Things by Michael Shermer: I think, perhaps, that this book was not quite what I thought it was going to be. What I wanted – and this is no fault of the author’s – was a book debunking specific “weird things”. While I got a decent amount of that in the (fascinating) chapter on Holocaust deniers, by and large it was more about the psychological and emotional reasons people believe things that don’t make any sense. Which is fine, as far as that goes, but it seemed to keep returning to the same few theories each time. I guess you could say he was making his case with additional evidence, but I got a sort of “okay, I got it, move on” feeling about the whole thing. In short, it’s an interesting read but probably something you’d more enjoy reading a chapter here and there rather than straight through.

Also posted on BookCrossing.