The invisible gorilla

The core of this book is an excellent review of inattention, albeit with a more introductory, anecdote-heavy bent. Chabris and Simons expand on their famous gorilla suit experiment, demonstrating that other seemingly obvious anomalies are often ignored in ways that are mostly impossible to predict. The second half of the book wanders pretty far from this area, however, becoming more of a standard pop social science book that was popular around this time. While these parts are totally fine, they're unspectacular and are better examined in other books. A lot of the examples the the authors bring in are also ethically problematic, particularly with regards to racism and law enforcement, with the authors often ignoring macro and social causes. Still highly recommend

If all you get from this book is to stop trusting the infallibility of your recollections, you've won. How many relationships could be saved on that simple point? This book goes much farther than that, though, to demonstrate how we place far too much confidence in so many facets of our lives. It will change the way you think about yourself and others, and perhaps improve the way you deal with the world.