I first heard of Dr. Sapolsky when my husband forwarded me a link to a talk he gave about depression. That lecture impressed me with its compassion and practicality. This book, about why and how we behave the way we behave, is also compassionate and practical, but also a little bit funny. It is SCIENCE, and although Dr. Sapolsky does his best to make it understandable to the layman, I couldn't really keep the different regions of the brain straight. Behavior is chemical response to stimulus, basically, with many examples of studies offered. Dr. Sapolsky finishes up this very long book by pointing out that there are always exceptions and variants in something as complex as behavior.

It took me about five months to read this dense book, but I think it was worth my time.