TLC Book Tour: Book Review of New: Understanding Our Need for Novelty and Change

At the get-go, Dear Reader, let me get this business out of the way:  I was given a free copy of Winifred Gallagher's latest book, entitled New: Understanding Our Need for Novelty and Change by TLC Book Tours in exchange for my agreement to read and review the book here on Everyday Simplicity.  Disclosure done, here's my opinion:

This is another book coming out of publishing houses these days where journalists attempt to provide perspective, if not answers, to why things are the way they are right now.  Think Malcomb Gladwell.  Think Stephen Dubner.  Maybe Chris Anderson.

Here we have a journalist who has written extensively in the area of behavioral science, Winifred Gallagher, who offers her take on things.  From its publisher (Penguin Press):

[i]n today's fast-paced world, it's easy to feel overwhelmed by the mind-boggling number of new things-whether products, ideas, or bits of data-bombarding us daily. But adapting to new circumstance is so crucial to our survival that "love of the new," or neophilia, is hardwired into our brains at the deepest levels. Navigating between our innate love of novelty and the astonishingly new world around us is the task of New: helping us adapt to, learn about, and create new things that matter, while dismissing the rest as distractions. With wit and clarity, acclaimed behavioral science writer Winifred Gallagher takes us to the archaeological sites and neuroscience laboratories exploring our species' special affinity for novelty. ... As individuals, however, we vary in how we balance the sometimes conflicting needs to avoid risk and approach rewards. Some 15 percent of us are die-hard "neophiliacs" who are biologically predisposed to passionately pursue new experiences, and another 15 percent are "neophobes" who adamantly resist change. Most of us fall squarely in the spectrum's roomy middle range. Whether we love change, avoid change, or take the middle path, neophilia plays a crucial role in all of our lives.  No matter where we sit on neophilia's continuum, New shows us how to use it more skillfully to improve our lives.... This big-picture perspective has long been missing, and New will jump-start that discussion by offering the tools we need to control our love of the new-rather than letting it control us.

If you like this sort of thing, then you'll probably like this book.  It's receiving mostly good reviews (if you don't count NPR); moreover, it's got lots of fun facts and delves into all sorts of areas of interest: anthropology, archaeology, psychology, sociology, economics -- you can even find a reference to Charles Dickens here (Bleak House, which was interesting to discover since I'm reading Bleak House now).

Gallagher also provides suggestions on how to do things differently so life is better.  In her lingo, she's giving guidance on how to cope with all this new so that you control it and it doesn't control you.


Again, if you read these kind of books then you'll like this one.   

Book Review: Shiny Objects by James A. Roberts

There are those that will shelve Jim Roberts' new book Shiny Objects next to Levitt and Dubner's Freakonomics or Malcolm Gladwell's Tipping Point, and they wouldn't be wrong -- Roberts is also contributing to a growing number of books being published these days that are looking around at the state of things in America and asking what the heck is going on here.

I think it's good to see these books getting published.  I like the idea that people are buying books to read and consider reevaluating where our society is today, how we got here, and where we're going.

So why bother with this one?  What Shiny Objects brings to the table is something that seems almost like a whistleblower at work: Roberts, as a marketing expert (and professor of consumer behavior at Baylor University), brings a marketing perspective to the table.

The promise of the book's subtitle: to explain "why we spend money we don't have in search of happiness we can't buy."  Roberts does this in a series of chapters that range from consideration of the Christian Megachurches (e.g., Joel Osteen's Lakewood) to the impact of our increasingly cashless society (i.e., using credit or debit cards) and psychological discussions of self-worth and self-control.

It's a fascinating read, and you'll learn a lot here.  I don't know that we'll all learn the same thing, though.

Dr. Roberts covers a lot of territory and asks a lot of hard questions: why are we so materialistic? What amount of  responsibility do home owners have to bear for the housing crisis (as opposed to big banks, mortgage servicers, or slippery appraisers)?  Things like that.

His book has lots of quizzes, fun ones too, and I always consider it as a sign of excellence when a problem is not only identified but a solution (or two) are offered.  Roberts does this.  Roberts guides the reader into contemplating personal goals and implementing change.

For this reason alone, this book is worth your time and I recommend that you read it.  

However, I don't know that consumer behavior alone is sufficient to explain what has happened to America today.  We need to read and understand what Professor Roberts provides us in Shiny Objects, but it's not the whole answer here.

Recognizing the irony of participating in his Word of Mouth marketing campaign in providing this review on a simplicity blog (I did get the book for free, see my earlier post), I don't know that marketing alone gives us the entire answer.

Reminds me of the old poem, one of my favorites, by John Godfrey Saxe about The Blind Men and the Elephant.  Roberts gives us important information here, if we as a country are to change and recover; however, while Shiny Objects reads as if it alone can provide all the change that each of us needs, I don't think this is possible.

As a Christian, I would suggest that only the Holy Bible can do that job.  That's one book too few people are pondering today.
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Blog Tour for Baylor Prof Jim Roberts New Book, Shiny Objects

I was recently invited to join a blog tour for a new book that has just been published by HarperOne this fall entitled Shiny Objects: Why We Spend Money We Don’t Have in Search of Happiness We Can’t Buy.  
Written by James A. Roberts, professor of marketing at Baylor University (which is about three hours due north from me on Interstate 35, up in Waco, Texas), it sounds like a great read from someone who has been studying consumerism and consumer behavior for awhile now.  (Check out his online bio here.)

I agreed to read and review the book because I liked the idea of learning what a noted academic with a reputation for studying the "dark side" of American consumerism / marketing had found.  Will Dr. Roberts have anything nice to say about voluntary simplicity?  Will he have any interesting facts and figures about all that ridiculous excess we see everyday (yes, Kim Kardashian was in the news again).

My review will be posted here on December 1, 2011.  It's part of the November 2011 TLC Blog Tour. 

Meanwhile, Dr. Roberts has a blog too, if you're interested ....