books.PsychBLOG

Questions to make your brain go ouch?

The Little Book of Thunks: 260 questions to make your brain go ouch!: 260 Questions to Make Your Brain Go Ouch! 

The first question I had to ask myself when I found out about this book, and I’m sure you’re doing the same thing now, was: what is a thunk? After a bit of trawling I found the website the compliments this quirky little book and found that:

A Thunk is a beguilingly simple-looking question about everyday things that stops you in your tracks and helps you start to look at the world in a whole new light.

The book contains 260 ‘thunks’ that really do get you thinking and can create some provocative discussions. At the beginning of the book is a great chapter on thinking (or should we call it ‘thunking’) and some ideas about how to use the book.

Here’s a few to get your brain in ticking over: 

• If I borrow a million pounds am I a millionaire?
• Could a fly cause an aeroplane to crash?
• Are you man-made or natural?
• Do dogs believe in God?
• When you comb your hair is it art?

All-in-all this is a great little book to get students and teachers alike thinking ‘outside of the box’.  There’s no real relevance to psychology teaching but I can see how it could be used to teach critical thinking, argument structure, and analysis of arguments.  Also, it could make an excellent addition to a tutorial program (or just something to get the students to have a debate over).  

For less than £7 The Little Book of Thunks is one of those books that everyone could have on their desk to pass those odd 5 minutes when there’s nothing else to do. 

From the back of the book:

Another gem from Ian Gilbert. Stimulating and enthralling. Without realising it I have been doing Thunks for years, as a parent, rugby coach and Open University tutor, helping my children and students to develop their own thinking. These statements will form the basis of my brain gyms, to stimulate mental skills and personal confidence. This is not a book to be left on the shelf, these THUNKS can be great for -thought for the Day in schools, colleges, the office, factory and … the kitchen at home. Enjoy the discussion. John Morris, JTM Educational Consultants –John Morris, JTM Educational Consultants.

You can get The Little Book of Thunks from Amazon for £6.99 or direct from Crown House publishing. 

Crown Publishing provided a review copy of this book for my reading pleasure.

Under the skin of Offender Profiling

Paul Britton: The Jigsaw Man

This is the first of two books that Britton has written giving an autobiographical view on his journery through his career as a Clinical Psychologist and how he got involved with offender profiling.

This book gives a fantastic incite into Offender Profiling and some of the things that are taken into consideration when creating a profile of an offender. Also Paul Britton allows us to glimpse at some of the cases that he’s had in his consultation room over the years.

A fantastic book for anyone interesting in Offender Profiling.  It’s not required reading for any of the course, and in some places can give quite graphic details about murders and rapes so reader-beware!

From the back of the book:

The autobiography of Paul Britton, one of the foremost offender profilers in the world. What he searches for at the scene of a crime are not fingerprints, fibres or blood stains, he looks for the “mind trace” left behind by those responsible, the psychological characteristics that can help the police to identify and understand the nature of the perpetrator. Over the past dozen years, Britton has assisted the police in over 100 cases involving murder, rape, arson, extortion and kidnapping. Among them were the murder of Jamie Bulger on a lonely railway line in Liverpool, the abduction of baby Abbie Humphries, the brutal slaying of Rachel Nickell on Wimbledon Common and the notorious “House of Horror” in Gloucester. He has helped to solve some of Britain’s most baffling cases, and has also advised the FBI and the Russian Ministry of the Interior.

All-in-all a great read and a bit of a page turner, but nothing here that really relates too much to the profiling of today… more in brief history of Profiling in the UK from Paul Brittons own perspective.  A superb book to stretch the more able students or for those who want to know a little more about clinical / forensic psychology and the origiains of offender profiling.  Available from Amazon for £5.99.