THE MYTH OF FREE WILL brings together a collection of essays and quotes on free will as an illusion. Featured are Steven Pinker, Sam Harris, Daniel C. Dennett, V. S. Ramachandran, Lee M. Silver, Susan Blackmore, Michael Shermer, Daniel M. Wegner, William B. Provine, Ramesh S. Balsekar, Laurence Tancredi, Thomas Clark, Mark Twain, Woody Allen, Albert Einstein, and many more. Do not expect a philosophy book or debate on free will. Expect discussions on cause-and-effect, responsibility, the brain and naturalism. A book for a mainstream audience. To access the 2nd edition, with 50 additional pages, type the title into the search box.

I recently received this slim volume and was quite surprised by what I got. I am in complete agreement with the contents of the book, but the book is so slim and so slight that I could not figure out who the book was intended for, unless it's just people like me who will buy an inexpensive book with the phrase free will in the title. Each of the brief essays in the book would not cover one side of an 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper if singlespaced, and none of the topics are developed in any way; each essay is simply an assertion of something (true and correct) about free will but without any real supporting information. I'm not even sure that the book would be a proper introduction for a high school philosophy class, and it certainly wouldn't be appropriate for anyone beyond that. Some of the ideas in the book are thought provoking, but there is no development at all; it is nice that there are a couple of informative references for most of the essays, but they are very brief.

There are several other introductions to the idea of free will in the same price range, particularly Thomas Pink's Free Will: AVery Short Introduction in the Oxford Very Short Introduction series, which can be had for five cents less. Tom Clark's Encountering Naturalism covers as much as this book does on free will in a much briefer space, and has many other helpful ideas as well. There is a far more information available on Wikipedia's Free Will entry, as well as at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy free will entry than is found in this book, and the last two are free. I feel badly saying such negative things about a book that I almost completely agree with, but there's really not much here, probably not even enough to call it a book.

This is a very good little book that contains 15 very brief essays on the subject, all written in this century by, mostly, notable and authoritative authors, as well as some complementary materials and resources. It is an excellent albeit modest introduction to the subject

The only problem I see with the book is lack of thorough proof reading, as there are a few annoying typos here and there.

Other than that, I would give it 5 starts.

Before reading this little book of essays I thought: "I choose, therefore I have free will. What more do I need to know?" But I found out that choosing is done by my brain, totally, nothing else is doing the job, or even helping out with the task, so I don't have or need free will. At first this new fact-of-life upset me because I wanted there to be more, some sort of ghostly "me" in and around my brain. Then I realized that without my complex, evolved human brain I would, as a species, have far fewer options (no cars, iPods, clothes, gourmet food) to choose from. This put me in a state of awe. Finally, being free of the free-will myth has empowered me in ways I could never have imagined. I've dropped a lot of unwarranted pride and blame and guilt. I give people a lot more slack and am able to set boundaries in a clearer way. Mainly, I reflect on my habits more. They intrigue me. Why did I (my brain) choose this and that? The essays in this little book really moved me, educated me, and changed me in a nice way.

Cris Evatt has identified one of the major philosophical questions of our time and has found the best experts in the world to answer "Is there free will?" Provocative, controversial, and a quick read, this little book will change the way you view the world. Read it if you dare!

What is great about this book is that you don't have to be a philosophy scholar to read it. It does not define "compatibilism" and "incompatiblism". Instead, anyone can pick it up and become knowledgable about free will as an illusion.