Hallinan is a former writer for the Wall Street Journal and winner of the Pulitzer Prize.  Like many books that I read, I was intrigued by the title.  As it turns out, this is a fairly informative and entertaining book.  It is somewhat of the flip side to the book Blink which showed how we can make fairly accurate assessments based on a sliver of information.  In this book, we are shown how easily we can make mistakes and often do.

One of my favorite sections of the book dealt airplane pilots and what is called CFIT – Controlled Flight Into Terrain.  CFIT refers to a completely operational aircraft that is flown into the ground.  The reason in most cases is simply a lack of focus.  The example that was cited had to do with an Easter Airlines flight which was flown into the Florida everglades simply because the pilot and flight crew got so focused on an indicator light that did not come on, that they lost sight of the most important task at hand, flying the plane.   As a result, 99 people died due to a light bulb that cost $12.

This was a good read for someone like me who speaks often and is fascinated with human behavior but would not be or much value to many people.