An excellent book for people who were recently introduced to skeptical thinking and want to understand the idea further.

This treatise on skeptical thinking should be the handbook of the attitude that any alert citizen of the world needs. Fine tools like the Baloney Detection Kit, the Invisible Dragon can be used to effectively separate reality from the illusion.

This book was a bit difficult to follow; probably because it is one of the few non-fiction books I’ve managed to read completely. It is not a story book that you can simply read through. You have to be motivated enough to take time time to understand what the author is trying to tell you.

The concept that the book presents is a very powerful and important one. One that is really required in order to make sure that whole countries don’t fall apart under their own weight.

All in all this is book is guaranteed to make you think: deeply and for long periods of time. I really miss Mr. Sagan and would like to hear his commentary on today’s problems of mass censorship and surveillance. Though this is all the more reason for me to voice my own opinions and do the thinking part on my own instead of expecting someone else to do it for me.

The book itself admits that last few chapters by Ann Druyan are much more political than the rest of the book. I feel these are instrumental in describing the importance of the skeptical attitude in a political setting. It does this via glimpses of the amount of foresight required by the founding fathes when making the American Consitution.

I intend (and recommend others) to treat this book as a powerful reference and keep coming back to it whenever overwhelmed by the demons haunting this world.