Thinking, Fast and Slow

I resisted this one for years because of how often it's cited. That was a mistake.

What stuck with me most is the System 1 / System 2 framing — not as trivia, but as a practical lens. Once you can name the fast, automatic judgments, you can catch a few of them in the act. You won't fix them (Kahneman is honest that even he couldn't), but naming buys you a half-second, and sometimes that's enough.

The chapters on anchoring and loss aversion changed how I make decisions under uncertainty. It's long, occasionally repetitive, and absolutely worth it.