Note:  I have decided to try to write a few words about books I’ve read recently that are relevant to Law and the Biosciences, broadly conceived.  I encourage others to do the same – particularly with books you think blog readers should want to read – or should want to avoid.

Elias Aboujaoude, Compulsive Acts:  A Psychiatrist’s Tales of Ritual and Obsession (University of California Press 2008)

This is a  compulsively (I can’t help myself) readable book about obsessive compulsive disorder.  The author, a psychiatrist at Stanford Medical School, combines stories from his own patients with information about recent research on OCD.  It’s short – only about 160 small pages – but I couldn’t put it down.  I hadn’t known anything, at least in any depth, about OCD before reading this, but it both gave me a good basic education and inspired me to look for more.  And it did so in fascinating fashion – Aboujaoude writes beautifully.  I recommend it to people who, like me, don’t know much about OCD but are interested in learning more.  – Hank Greely