Here is my first nonfiction review book from William Morrow Publishing.  It is The Other Side of Normal: How Biology is Providing the Clues to Unlock the Secrets of Normal and Abnormal Behavior by Jordan Smoller.  I have been fascinated with psychology since I was a kid and remember watching the movie My Girl with Macaulay Culkin.  They found this old model of a human brain in the attic that was used to study Phrenology...the study of the bumps on your head....well, I was just intrigued by that and began my own mini research into personality and psychology.  So much so, most of my electives in college were either psychology or art history, weird?  Anyway, after college I went into the social work field and so on and so forth.  The point of my rambling is that I chose this book due to my interest in psychology.  Whew...that was unnecessary of me.
I like this book because it examines 3 major influences on our human behavior, so we are not merely stuck on an one-way track.  It looks at a person's genes, experiences and evolution are how these factors shape our emotional and social natures.  It looks at specific case studies throughout history.  Smoller has made of point of not writing an encyclopedia of psychology, and though there are times when the text is quite technical, I did not feel lost in it.  I recommend this book for anyone who is interesting in human psychology and behavior.