BUY-OLOGY by Martin Lindstrom is published in hardback by Random House Business Books, priced £17.99. Available now.
MARTIN LINDSTROM was nine when he started building a Lego kingdom in his garden. At 11, he'd opened it to the public, and by the age of 12, he'd renamed it Mini-land, after a short visit from the Lego lawyers. He describes that moment as his first le
sson in the importance of branding.
Twenty-six years later, Martin is now a marketing expert, advising big companies. But for the last four years, his focus has been less on adverts, and more on what makes us buy.
After persuading eight multi-national companies to sponsor his work, he raised $7 million, hired 2000 volunteers, 200 scientists and began asking: Why do we buy?
"No-one has done this before because it's so complex and expensive,'' he says.
Using cutting-edge scanning equipment and by measuring brain activity, Martin noted which adverts were having the most positive effect. There is a part of your brain called the nucleus accumbens,'' he says. "That is the craving spot or pleasure centre of the mind. This is activated when an advert is working.
"Using brain scanning techniques, we discovered that people are irrational. Time after time, people would say one thing, and we'd look into the brain and see they were thinking the total opposite.
"The best advertisers in this country are the tobacco companies, followed by Guinness and Virgin,'' he says.
"These are the retailers who understand that we are emotional creatures and want to be seduced."
Martin has been fascinated by tobacco advertising for years. The advertising guru explains that he has never understood why, despite warnings on the packets and increasingly strict limits on advertising, people smoke more than ever.
"If you ask smokers, they say that warnings on packets discourage them from buying cigarettes. But our tests showed those warnings make smokers want to smoke more."
Unsurprisingly, some companies aren't excited about Martin's research. In the last 18 months, he's had many tempting offers from tobacco companies to leave his work.
But Martin wants to use his results to help make advertising bans and warnings more effective. He says: "I feel good about what I'm doing because it means this book is going to effect a change.''
NEW FICTIONGoing It Alone by Claire Dowling is published as a paperback original by Headline Review, priced £6.99. Available now.
Millie and Andrew are in their late 30s and trying for a baby. But Andrew is becoming increasingly frustrated and tired of his wife's erratic longing. That's when he drops the bombshell: he actually doesn't want a baby after all.
With Millie's biological clock ticking, she takes the news very badly and they call it a day on their marriage. But Millie still wants a baby, and will go to any lengths to have one. So much so that she goes it alone and decides to find a sperm donor; an anonymous man who will provide her with what she wants with no strings attached.
With the backing from her work colleagues and armed with her 'joint' credit card, She sets off on an adventure full of moral twists and turns, while still trying to deal with the break-up of her marriage.
This is an amusing, touching book but lacks depth. It is easy to digest, but definitely not a classic.
6/10 Review by Caroline Davison
Just After Sunset by Stephen King is published in hardback by Hodder & Stoughton, priced £18.99. Available now.
He's the undisputed master of the spooky tale, and this collection of short stories demonstrates that King is still at the top of his game. They vary in length from a mere ten pages to 50-plus, but every one is expertly honed.
The subject matter ranges from a totally evil cat to a 9/11 survivor, and every story bears the hallmark of this superlative storyteller. These are tales to be savoured on a chilly winter night, in front of a roaring fire, with a glass of red wine – but keep all the lights on. And don't be surprised if you suffer some disturbing dreams afterwards. King would be failing in his task otherwise!
9/10 Review by Sandra Mangan
Slumberland by Paul Beatty is published in paperback by Harvill Secker priced £12.99. Available now.
A black American DJ with a "phonographic memory" comes up with the perfect beat. But the only man he feels can do it justice is a talismanic jazz player, whose last known whereabouts was a bar in Berlin – the Slumberland.
The novel traces this DJ's quest to track down Charles 'the Schwa' Stone, set against the backdrop of Germany's reunification and the symbolic fall of the Berlin Wall.
At his best, Beatty dresses up razor-sharp satire on racial and sexual politics in mesmerising flights of word play that the hip-hop and jazz icons he anorakishly references throughout would delight in.
All too often, though, he tries too hard to show off his undoubted linguistic talent, drowning his own beat in a cacophony of cleverness.
His DJ creation rejects the classic advice to jazz players that 'if you think, you're dead', but a little more spontaneity might just be what the author needs.
6/10 Review by Joe Churcher
NEW NON-FICTION Somebody – The Reckless Life And Remarkable Career of Marlon Brando by Stefan Kanfer is published in hardback by Faber and Faber, priced £20. Available now.
Marlon Brando (1924-2004) was one of Hollywood's most idiosyncratic stars, both on screen and off, and this excellent new biography of the brilliant but self-destructive actor is as bizarre as any work of fiction.
He was a notoriously difficult person, who often behaved appallingly on set, but his boorish behaviour can be traced back to the serious psychological and emotional damage he suffered as a child.
One of his early film hits was The Wild One in 1953, which has acquired cult status. In it, Brando preceded James Dean by a few years as a leather-jacketed biker – a 'rebel without a cause'.
In real life, Brando always rebelled against authority and publicly backed many liberal causes. It won him few friends.
A legendary lover of women – and now and then a man – his private life was a shambles and one of his sons was jailed for murder.
Like Elvis Presley, Brando became a compulsive eater and his increasingly gargantuan size became the subject of hilarity in America, but today he is justly revered as one of Hollywood's all-time greats.
9/10 Review by Anthony Looch
CHILDREN'S CHOICE
The Bag Of Bones: The Second Tale From The Five Kingdoms by Vivian French is published in paperback by Walker, priced £4.49. Available now.
This book is about the good witches of Wadingburn and a bad one called Truda Hangnail. She is so evil that she has been banned from the Five Kingdoms, but is now back in town to cause trouble.
She plans to steal the crown from Queen Bluebell and restore evil, but Trueheart Gracie Gillypot, Prince Marcus of Gorebreath and their friends Gubble the Troll and Marlon the bat are determined to stop her.
There is lots of action and my ten-year-old's favourite parts were when the witches use cauldrons and mix up potions.
However, after a few chapters the story got boring and the reader lost interest.
This is a great book for children who like witches, magic and evil.
4/10 Review by Laura Wurzal
HARDBACKS1 (1) Guinness World Records 2009
2 (2) Dear Fatty Dawn French
3 (3) At My Mother's Knee The Autobiography, Paul O'Grady
4 (4) Parky: My Autobiography Michael Parkinson
5 (5) Jamie's Ministry of Food Jamie Oliver
6 (6) Cookie Jacqueline Wilson
7 (7) For Crying Out Loud The World According To Jeremy Clarkson
8 (8) Power Of Five The Necropolis, Anthony Horowitz
9 (4) That's Another Story Julie Walters
10 (10) The White Tiger Adiga Aravind
PAPERBACKS1 (1) Dreams from My Father A Story of Race and Inheritance by Barack Obama
2 (2) The Audacity of Hope Barack Obama
3 (-) The Appeal John Grisham
4 (3) A Thousand Splendid Suns Khaled Hosseini
5 (9) Twilight Stephenie Meyer
6 (-) New Moon Stephenie Meyer
7 (6) This Year It Will be Different Maeve Binchy
8 (10) Eclipse Stephenie Meyer
9 (4) Revelation Shardlake, CJ Sansom
10 (7) The Return Victoria Hislop
The full article contains 1428 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
