Thinking Fast and Slow - Not a quick read.

But I like the look of a couple of the things you list above, and will watch for them the next time I am in a book store.

But haven't quite got around to it. All in due course.

Another to add to my list: Pilgrim's Wilderness. Fascinating story of abuse in the name of, you guessed it, religion. About a guy from Dallas - was in same high school as Lee Harvey Oswald for a bit - who was responsible for the death of his girlfriend - who happened to be the daughter of the governor of Texas - and then essentially became a hermit. With one variation. He was married and spent the bulk of his time impregnating his wife, staying off the grid, and, as noted above, abusing his children, all while presenting himself publicly as the last Alaskan frontiersman.

I suppose there is something of a happy ending, though happy is probably not the right word. Mostly it's just a tale of one nasty son of a bitch. It's a bit of a slow read, but if you want to get your blood pressure raised, give it a try.

They did badly in high school algebra and have gone out of their way to forget what little they knew.

Which means, when presented with numbers of any kind, their eyes glaze over and they haven't a clue how to evaluate what's presented.

I have no cure for this. I can only say that I had an amazing high school math program (UICSM, which stands for the University of Illinois Committee on School Mathematics) from which I've retained large amounts some fifty years later. I've also taken more math as an adult, including a semester of calculus, and two different semesters of statistics and probability. Wow. I love that stuff. The important part is that I can generally understand math and statistics as presented in the media, which is enormou7sly helpful.

I work in a numbers intensive business, and it never ceases to amaze me how little people are actually able to understand basic arithmetic. In all fairness though, 98% of people will not actually need more than 7th grade algebra on even an annual basis.

I agree that statistics are fascinating, and the ability to manipulate them can be a lot of fun when inflicted on the uninitated.

And an understanding of basic statistics would keep people from being bamboozled about all sorts of thing.

The Brain That Changes Itself - an intriguing book on neuroplasticity.

In the Shadow of the Sword - a tome on the rise of the Middle East to become what it is now. It is by Tom Holland, and anything he writes is very good, his best being Persian Fire.

The Ghost Map - A history of the cholera epidemic in London, and the beginning of modern epidemology (sp?) by Doctor John Snow. Truly fascinating.