Here’re my three favorite books from the last year or so, in alphabetical order. I don’t seek out books on “human desire” it just happens that there are two really good ones that showed up.

“A Billion Wicked Thoughts: What the World’s Largest Experiment Reveals about Human Desire” by Ogi Ogas and Sai Gaddam, is an amazing book by two neuroscientists who arrived at insights into male and female desire by tracking down millions of computer searches for sexual related material. Online searches and click- throughs provided the authors with information unfiltered by the inhibitions inherent in interviews, because the data were generated in the privacy of homes and workplaces. The vast number and borderless nature of internet searches studied provided a more real picture of what people are looking for. Although it sounds academic, the book is entertaining and informative.

“Linchpin” by Seth Godin is another favorite. It’s about many aspects of modern living and decision-making disguised as a marketing and business book. Here’s a more detailed review I did earlier this year about it. Seth writes about the unique opportunies available to individuals now as business models are shifting away from favoring the factory model to favoring you if you’re ready.

I also recommended “Sex At Dawn” by Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jetha about a year ago here, if you want a more detailed review. It’s still a favorite of mine.”Sex At Dawn” explores the permanent shadow cast across our current civilized models of sex. That shadow is cast by how the authors contend that we’ve evolved, sexually, over millions of years and how different it is compared to how we’ve been behaving in the last 10,000 years or so as we started living in larger groups.

Each of these books offers fascinating insights into how we are, aren’t, or could be.