Despite the slightly misleading title (more on that later), I enjoyed this book. The author, a senior lecturer in Psychology at Keele University, discusses the benefits and pitfalls of certain ‘bad’ behaviours, including drinking, driving too fast, swearing, time wasting and dying (!) using various tests and experiments conducted by scientists to do so.

As he explains in the introduction, he doesn’t delve too deeply into the science side of things, but explains experiments conducted and their results in layman’s terms (good for a person like me). At the end of each chapter he does provide a list of references and suggestions for further reading.

Stephens is a genial and engaging narrator – a lot of how he writes is in the kind of language you might use having a chat in the pub with friends – which makes for a fun read as well as an informative one. I’m still not convinced that some of the behaviour is beneficial or indeed that all of the behaviour constitutes ‘being bad’ – and certainly there are limits drawn; for example the book acknowledges that excessive drinking is bad for health, while pointing out that drinking in moderation can have health and psychological benefits, but then I wouldn’t say that moderate drinking is ‘bad’ behaviour anyway. As another example, the chapter on swearing states that swearing in certain situations is beneficial, but that there are of course some circumstances when swearing is entirely inappropriate.

Little niggles aside however, overall this book is interesting and provides some food for thought. I’d definitely read more by this author. ( )