I like books that challenge conventional thinking beyond shallow left and right analogies. In this vein I recommend Nassim Taleb’s “Fooled by Randomness” and “The Black Swan”, Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, and “The Tipping Point” by Malcolm Gladwell and even”Think” by Michale LeGault (which challenged Gladwell’s ‘Blink’).

I now add “Mobs, Messiahs and Markets” by William Bonner and Lila Rajiva to that special list of books that are thought provoking and enlightening. Kudos to the tip from Douglass Ott. (Yes and not Yes).

For example the authors challenge the conventional wisdom that we spend too much on elections and that money is too influential.

“It seem that Americans spend about a billion dollars on elections, all told, which is also what they spend annually on ….. chewing gum.”

“Levitt found that winners could have halved their spending and lost only 1% of the vote, while losers could have doubled their spending and gained only 1%. Who you are seems to have been more important than what you spend.”

“The belief – like many beliefs we hold as a group- is simply not as well founded as people think it is.”

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