Rating: 
Summary: Interesting science, but poorly organized and written.
Review: Who isn't captivated by the unspoken language of expression. Very few in science today would dispute that non-verbal expression contributes a signficant amount of "information rate transfer" in every human to human exchange. That's why I ordered this book. I was curious to know how the mechanics of non-verbal expression (manifested in the face) generally worked. Paul Ekman has been at the forefront of this research since the mid-sixties. Before ordering, I spent some time at his site (of same name as the book) and was impressed enough to do what the site pushes you to do: order the book... I was mildly dissapointed. While the book has plenty of interesting factoids, from the beginning it felt way overwritten. Almost like the author had a 24 page lesson plan and decided to stretch it out to 240 pages. In my opinion, there is allot of "fluff". Granted, some may be interested in reading 20 pages about the fact that emotions are nature (vs. nurture) across all cultures...well, that was hotly debated 20 years ago, now it's generally accepted as fact...move on. The meat of my issue with the book is that it should have been a lesson plan. My favorite part of the book is at the end when there are 14 pages of faces with barely registered emotion on them that you have to discern the meaning in. I wanted that throughout the book. If you have a particular fascination with this subject, I'd recommend ordering the CD's and using the interactive lesson plan. Skip the book. Hope this was helpful.
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