Book: What Makes Us Tick
This one was a Christmas present: a lecturer at college mentioned it as something worth reading, so I put it into the mix, and I’ve been reading it in small doses this year.
Author Hugh Mackay has been a social commentator in Australia for decades, and so his take on human nature is a well-informed one, backed up with excerpts from interviews with people from a wide range of backgrounds.
It’s an easy read, and – though it mentions the place of religion in the lives of some people – it’s written from an atheistic point-of-view.
In the book, each chapter details a desire that drives people: to be taken seriously, for ‘my place’, for something to believe in, to connect, to be useful, to belong, for more, for control, for something to happen, and for love: if you’re looking for an opportunity to think through the different motivating forces in the life of modern Australians, this is a good place to start.