Jess Walter's collection of short stories "We Live in Water". I really can't emphasize enough what a good writer this guy is. Wonderful stories, and from a viewpoint we don't often see - he's really got "unemployed in the Pacific Northwest" covered.

"Mistakes Were Made But Not by Me : Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts" by Carol Tavris, Elliot Aronson.

Very readable overview of how and why we are drawn to self justification, even when we can rationally see that it's not in our best interests. This is one of best organized and most readable popular science books I've read - and the authors make their point very persuasively.

Thanks for the note agony. I'll probably check that book out when I get the chance. I enjoy reading books about sociology/psychology but so many of them are poorly researched, poorly written, too technical or with a heavy political slant.

Aronson is one of the leading researchers in the field, but you'd never know it by the easy style of the book. No real political bias that I could see - in the section on self-justifying war, George W Bush comes under some scrutiny, but so does LBJ. They are quite hard on their own field, too. Their main point is that all humans do this, so checks must be built into systems - we can't trust our own perceptions of confirmation bias.

I read a lot of this kind of thing, too, but seldom make it all the way through the book. This was a good one.