The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement
(Libby/OverDrive eAudiobook)

The New York Times columnist Brooks has written a fine essay on how people can lead fulfilling lives. He merges his strength in constructing sociological ideal types with current cognitive and sociobiological research. The vehicles for his observations are the lives of the fictional Harold and Erica, from conception, through marriage and careers, to death. His main contention is this: "The central evolutionary truth is that the unconscious matters most. The central humanistic truth is that the conscious mind can influence the unconscious." Framing the same point within the great conversation of philosophy, "The French Enlightenment, which emphasized reason, loses. The British Enlightenment, which emphasized sentiment, wins." Emotions and connections with others are the core of being human; conscious reason is better understood as the servant of that core, not the master. Brooks did decide to sidestep a large theme in most considerations of a meaningful life by not giving Harold and Erica children. On the whole, though, the book is an engaging argument about what human nature and human fulfillment are made of. Summing Up: Highly recommended. General and undergraduate libraries. B. Weston Centre College

*Starred Review* Following the example of Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Emile, Brooks offers fictional characters Harold and Erica to illustrate how humans communicate, are educated, and succeed or don't. Synthesizing research on human unconsciousness, Brooks meshes sociology, psychology, and economics to show how character is formed and how we strive for happiness and success. He follows Harold, from a solid middle-class background, and Erica, from a working-class background, from birth, through school, work, love, marriage, and into old age, detailing their lives, the choices they make given the complexities of their personal histories, the histories of their families, and the backdrops of their lives. Through Harold and Erica, Brooks masterfully details how we all are led to the choices we make and how they define our lives. He offers a new look at the assumptions we make about life and a close, deep examination of the failure of social and economic policies that do not take into account the complexities of human behavior, treating us as if we were totally rational and guided by our thoughts rather than some combination of intellect and emotion. Brooks, New York Times columnist and author of Bobos in Paradise (2000), is engaging as well as comprehensive about a revolution in consciousness. --Bush, Vanessa Copyright 2010 Booklist

Brooks delivers alook at the impact of social influence on the individual that will help many reconsider what shapes them. He structures this work of the latest research in psychology and sociology (with emphasis on social psychology) in the tradition of Rousseau's Emile, creating two fictional characters whose choices and decisions throughout their lives are contextualized by a myriad of social, economic, and cultural forces. With a friendly projection, Arthur Morey narrates with a strong, calm, and deliberate tone, making sure each piece of this complex puzzle is understood, and Brooks's prose certainly invites this approach. With well-chosen emphasis and pauses, Morey engages listeners with a sincere tone that comes close to condescension, but never actually crosses over. Both Morey and Brooks are enthusiastic, but shy away from being preachy. A Random hardcover. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

*Starred Review* Following the example of Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Emile, Brooks offers fictional characters Harold and Erica to illustrate how humans communicate, are educated, and succeed—or don't. Synthesizing research on human unconsciousness, Brooks meshes sociology, psychology, and economics to show how character is formed and how we strive for happiness and success. He follows Harold, from a solid middle-class background, and Erica, from a working-class background, from birth, through school, work, love, marriage, and into old age, detailing their lives, the choices they make given the complexities of their personal histories, the histories of their families, and the backdrops of their lives. Through Harold and Erica, Brooks masterfully details how we all are led to the choices we make and how they define our lives. He offers a new look at the assumptions we make about life and a close, deep examination of the failure of social and economic policies that do not take into account the complexities of human behavior, treating us as if we were totally rational and guided by our thoughts rather than some combination of intellect and emotion. Brooks, New York Times columnist and author of Bobos in Paradise (2000), is engaging as well as comprehensive about a "revolution in consciousness." Copyright 2011 Booklist Reviews.

New York Times columnist Brooks (Bobos in Paradise) raids Malcolm Gladwell's pop psychology turf in a wobbly treatise on brain science, human nature, and public policy. Essentially a satirical novel interleaved with disquisitions on mirror neurons and behavioral economics, the narrative chronicles the life cycle of a fictional couple—Harold, a historian working at a think tank, and Erica, a Chinese-Chicana cable-TV executive—as a case study of the nonrational roots of social behaviors, from mating and shopping to voting. Their story lets Brooks mock the affluent and trendy while advancing soft neoconservative themes: that genetically ingrained emotions and biases trump reason; that social problems require cultural remedies (charter schools, not welfare payments); that the class divide is about intelligence, deportment, and taste, not money or power. Brooks is an engaging guide to the "cognitive revolution" in psychology, but what he shows us amounts mainly to restating platitudes. (Women like men with money, we learn, while men like women with breasts.) His attempt to inflate recent research on neural mechanisms into a grand worldview yields little except buzz concepts—"society is a layering of networks"—no more persuasive than the rationalist dogmas he derides. (Mar.)