Your Stuff Can Say A Lot About You

“Snoop: What Your Stuff Says About You” by Sam Gosling, Ph.D., 2008, Basic Books, $25/$26.95 Canada, 263 pages, includes notes and index: You have a new neighbor, and while you haven’t met him, you already know a little about him.
He has children, evident by kid accoutrements that litter his space. He drives a snazzy sports car, and he’s a snappy dresser, so he’s got bucks. On the other hand, his area is a mess, and he doesn’t seem eager to fix that.
What kind of guy is this new neighbor of yours, anyhow?
In the new book “Snoop: What Your Stuff Says About You” by Sam Gosling, Ph.D., you’ll learn how to interpret the clues the new guy leaves out for you to see. Get inside his space, see what he likes, look at the possessions he displays and you’ll be able to learn even more.
Throughout history, scientists have studied differences in personality. Even ancient Romans had a chronicler of such things. In more recent times, there have been several kinds of “personality tests.” One of the most-studied systems is called “The Big Five,” which includes openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism. Although you think you know what each of them entails, the behaviors included in these traits may surprise you.
Okay, you’re saying. That’s great, but you can’t give a personality test to everybody you meet, know or might hire. Couldn’t you learn about someone just as easily through casual cocktail parties, interviews or water cooler chit-chat?
Maybe. Studies indicate that the number-one topic in most “getting-to-know-you” conversations is music. Stick to that, and you might glean something.
Bathroom and bedroom snooping can tell you a lot, but since that’s not possible when you’re at work, take a look at your target’s personal and office bric-a-brac but don’t assume anything. An odd or seemingly significant object may be a sentimental tchotchke, an office joke, a left-behind item or it may signify something the person wants to believe about him or herself. Personal e-mails can certainly be telling. If you’re astute, you may be able to ascertain personality by watching someone walk or by closely observing the words he uses when he speaks or writes. And stereotypes? In cases like this, they’re good things.
So what about you? Is it possible to throw snoopers off the path by faking a certain ambience in your office or car? Gosling says it’d be difficult. Your ingrained personality traits will betray you more than not.
I liked this book, even though it wasn’t what I thought it was going to be. I figured it to be a look at what we buy and why, but author Gosling takes things a little deeper than that. He looks at how our things and our habits broadcast who we are or who we think we are, why we keep the things we keep and how others perceive us by virtue of our created surroundings and our possessions.
Beware that there’s a lot to digest here, including charts and tests that will take time to understand. Still, if you have reason to size up people quickly, “Snoop” is a book to poke around in.

‘OBSESSIONS’ REVIEW
“Obsessions” by Marshall Cook, 2008, Bleak House Books, $24.95 hardcover/$14.95 paperback, 298 pages: At some point in your life, you made a promise to yourself. Chances are, it started out as “Someday ...”
Someday, I’ll travel through Europe. Someday, I’ll track down that classic car I wanted in high school. Someday, I’ll learn to ski/be brave enough to sing karaoke/master a tricky recipe in the kitchen/be somebody.
For Monona Quinn, her someday promise was to write a fiction book, maybe a mystery. In the new novel “Obsessions” by Marshall Cook, she won’t have to look very far. Everywhere Mo goes, a dead body appears.
The peaceful pine country of Northern Wisconsin seems like a good place to hold a writer’s workshop. At least that’s what Doug Stennett thinks when he plunks down money to buy his wife, Monona Quinn, a two-week workshop-in-the-woods. It’s not like Mo needs to learn to write. She once was a columnist for a Chicago newspaper, and now she’s the editor of a small-town local paper. No, what Mo needs is a vacation, and she and Doug need to work on their marriage.
Since no conference is complete without an author-in-residence, famous writer Fletcher Downs has been tapped to teach a class on mystery writing. His name, affiliated with this workshop, has pulled in people from all over the upper Midwest but Downs is a curmudgeon and very much a womanizer.
He hates everything about the North Woods, and his classes show it. When they turn out to be self-promoting speeches about his books, some of the attendees are disgruntled.
When Downs doesn’t show up for his seminars, people are angry but no one is surprised.
They are surprised, however, by his death. Less than a week after the workshop started, Downs is found down beneath a pine tree, the back of his head smashed.
Although Doug makes Mo promise that she won’t play Nancy Drew, Mo can’t help herself. She had a hand in solving three crimes in the past, and now her reporter’s instinct is telling her that this might not be a single killing. The date of the murder rings a bell, and Downs’ death could be one in a chain of crimes. Now, Mo’s obsession to solve them all just might have unlocked the clues.
Are you sick to death of violent mysteries filled with terror, blood and gore? You won’t find any of that here in this gentle, hometown-y whodunit. Author Cook packs lots of characters into this book, but his main crime solver, Monona Quinn, is likeable and believable, as is the supporting cast for this novel.
While I had the culprit figured out pretty early, the reason for the murder was a nice surprise, believe it or not, and getting there was a lot of fun in the meantime.
If you’re looking for a cozy that won’t make you want to turn on the lights or lock the doors, this is one to sleuth.
“Obsessions” is a book you should promise yourself you’ll read much sooner than “someday.”

TERRI SCHLICHENMEYER has been reading since she was 3 years old.