I recently scanned through Flow, by Mihàly Csíkszentmihályi, a book I first read a decade ago. It didn't improve on rereading -- it's not a bad book, but it has the kind of overblown promises I've come to recognize in a certain category of books by obsessed people. Greater world peace, less illness, better personal finances and fewer unwed teen mothers would result if more people learned to experience more flow. Another book in this category is The Promise of Sleep, by Dr. William C. Dement: if only more people got better sleep we'd see better health, less unemployment and many fewer traffic accidents. Any others?

My husband has been ranting about another category of books: books about a particular invention that "changed the world". The smaller the subject the funnier these are, and these are easy to find with an Amazon search:

• The Machine That Changed the World -- about "lean manufacturing" as introduced by Toyota, basically a PR exercise for Toyota according to reviews.


• Rome 1960: The Olympics that Changed the World


• The Night of the Long Knives: Forty-Eight Hours That Changed the History of the World


• Nixon and Mao: The Week That Changed the World


• The Map That Changed the World: William Smith and the Birth of Modern Geology


• The Gun that Changed the World -- about the Kalashnikov


• Mersey the River That Changed the World


• The Fibre that Changed the World: The Cotton Industry in International Perspective, 1600-1990s


• The Box That Changed the World: Fifty Years of Container Shipping - An Illustrated History


• Tea: The Drink That Changed the World


• Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World


• Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World