Snoop by Sam Gosling

Gosling's 'Snoop' proposes to give an insight into what our personal spaces and possessions say about our personalities. It claims to turn every reader into a "super snooper," someone who is able to grasp the snoopee's nature by simply examining her bedroom. I too, was excited about becoming one and tried to fully master the art of "snooping." Unfortunately, the book only gives you a very limited snip-it of interpreting human psychology. It will take a lot of study and practice to become an expert "snooper."

Basically, Gosling's message is this: no matter how hard you try to camouflage and portray yourself as you wish to be portrayed, our identities are so strong that they will shine through no matter what. It is for this reason that Gosling teaches us not only how to interpret the most obvious signs such as organization but also clues of contrived display; for example, signs of hasty organization does not suggest that the person is conscientious by nature but he is merely trying to appear to be.

It is true that snooping only gives a relatively provincial knowledge of a person's characteristics. Nevertheless, it is still quite entertaining putting it into action and trying to determine the snoopee's openness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, extraversion and agreeableness based purely on observation.