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The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement Audio CD – Audiobook, CD, Unabridged

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David Brooks (Author)
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David Brooks (Author), Arthur Morey (Reader)
4 out of 5 stars 431 customer reviews
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Product Details

  • Audio CD
  • Publisher: Random House Audio; Unabridged edition (March 22, 2011)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0307739007
  • ISBN-13: 978-0307739001
  • Product Dimensions: 5.1 x 1.6 x 5.9 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (431 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #614,724 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Top Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 starsMy thoughts
By G. Anderson on March 11, 2011
Format: Hardcover
In this book, New York Times columnist David Brooks takes on the audacious endeavor of weaving together a unified picture of the human mind through various discoveries from the sciences. Oh ya, and it's all presented in the context of a story about two fictional characters, Harold and Erica.

You can get a good feel for the topics he covers from the chapter titles:

1 - Decision Making
2 - The Map Meld
3 - Mindsight
4 - Mapmaking
5 - Attachment
6 - Learning
7 - Norms
8 - Self-Control
9 - Culture
10 - Intelligence
11 - Choice Architecture
12 - Freedom and Commitment
13 - Limerence
14 - The Grand Narrative
15 - Metis
16 - The Insurgency
17 - Getting Older
18 - Morality
19 - The Leader
20 - The Soft Side
21 - The Other Education
22 - Meaning

If you think that's a lot of chapters, you're right on target. It's a pretty thick book at 450 pages, but it's easy to move through (not quite novel easy, but much more so than typical nonfiction).

Book's strengths:

- If you are familiar with Brook's social commentary (and like it) you won't be disappointed, but this isn't the real strength of this book.

- In a style that's reminiscent of Malcolm Gladwell, Brooks offers a pop view of experimental psychology that is downright fascinating. The studies he explores are the real meat and merit of this book, and they expose many fallacies in the way we think that we think. Here are a few of the topics:
* The hidden role emotions play in making decisions.
* How mirror neurons in the brain are wired to mimic the person we're talking to.Read more ›
7 Comments 365 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback...
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3.0 out of 5 starsWanted to Enjoy This Book
By Dave English VINE VOICE on March 8, 2011
Format: Hardcover Vine Customer Review of Free Product ( What's this? )
I wanted to enjoy this book -- a grand idea to integrate disparate threads of human research by a smart writer I enjoy reading in the New York Times, a book profiled over two pages in Newsweek and featured by the Scientific American Book Club -- but unfortunately I found it ultimately unsatisfying. For someone who hasn't read about modern psychology advances, this may be a good primer. But for most people the wide range and added space of a narrative device results in too shallow a depth to be fulfilling. It's not that Brooks has things wrong or couldn't go deeper if he tried; it's that there is not room.

In the introduction Brooks explains "I'm writing this story, first, because while researchers in a wide variety of fields have shone their flashlights into different parts of the cave of the unconscious, illuminating different corners and openings, much of their work is done in academic silos. I'm going to try and synthesize their findings into one narrative." This is exactly what he does, combining the wide expanses of psychology from neuroscience to social groups and behavioral economics, using a literary device used by Jean-Jacques Rousseau in 1760 for the book "Emile". We follow two fictional characters through their life, seeing how recent scientific findings shape them and their inner life. Some of this fiction is witty and insightful, all of it is well-written, but as fiction it is not enough. It does not work as literature that shows not tells. The science is fascinating, and fully referenced, but the sketches are too fast and pass too quickly. The insights and implications of human connection, friendship and love are illuminating and sometimes exhilarating, but somehow it doesn't quite gel.Read more ›
18 Comments 366 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback...
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1.0 out of 5 starsCouldn't finish it
By Greg M on October 28, 2011
Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase
I generally appreciate columns in the New York Times by Mr. Brooks. This book, however, was too much. He tries to use a pair of characters to illustrate a series of opinions about the social nature of humanity. I do not disagree with this approach, but the way it is executed in this piece is disjoint and provides little flow. As soon as you get comfortable with a line of reasoning and storytelling, he changes voice or direction that makes you lose all reading momentum. This, put simply, makes the book a chore.

I would characterize the book largely as ADD-ridden. He explores none of the ideas he covers completely, and leaves you feeling like you have been told what to think rather than led down a path of thoughtful discovery.

What makes it worse is the tone with which the book is written. I understand Mr. Brooks is an intelligent man. Indeed, he may be in the top 1% of intelligent people. That does not make it necessary to write a book like he is speaking to a room of 1st graders. His pedagogical methods are simplistic and assume that the reader is a donkey who must have basic tenets of logic explained to him at the expense of the actual philosophies that he proposes. His characters are flimsy and the lessons learned through his linked vignettes are poor, thin, disorganized, and cover such a broad range of topics (personal decisions like cheating on one's spouse all the way to broad political policy questions -- only Dante to my knowledge has ever covered such a broad range of topics effectively, and that required epic poetry). His parable system is simply ineffective in keeping him as an author on a central, narrow message and allows him to embark on whimsical flights of philosophical fancy into areas in which he has no background or authority.Read more ›
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