Snoop: What Your Stuff Says About You by Sam Gosling PhD

Snoop by Sam Gosling, Ph.D - 227 pages.

My tendency is to skim most non-fiction human nature/psychology type books, with the exception of Malcom Gladwell's books and this one. Snoop can fall into the overly analytical, scientific experiment, dissertation mode, but is accessible enough to make those parts painless.

The study of stuff is fascinating - how our pictures are displayed, whether we have sports memorabilia, and how we decorate our cubicles or bedrooms - and give information about who we are to those who are trained snoopologists. For a long time, my method has been eavesdropping - but now that I've had kids I can't concentrate as well on other people's conversations, which I'm sure comes as a relief to my husband.  The author's method of determining 5 personality factors - openness, conscientousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism (or OCEAN) - is layed out clearly and the examples of various observations are insightful. These aren't tools to make judgments, but to get clues about people you may not get from casual conversation.

Either this book will be interesting to you (fellow snoops unite) or not (good for you, minding your own business). But it probably also has value, especially in office environments, for determining someone's work habits. So give it a skim, but be careful because you may get sucked in. Then we can visit each other's houses and play snoop.

My rating: 4- stars.

the author's website is www.snoopology.com

The End.