Tis the season for some reading

Mastermind: How To Think Like Sherlock Holmes

By Maria Konnikova, $32

BOOKS on how to think better are not always an easy read. But Maria Konnikova's Mastermind: How To Think Like Sherlock Holmes is something of an exception. Written in a breezy fashion, it splices excerpts of the detective's adventures with scientific studies on memory and reasoning. It offers good and sound advice on sharpening your powers of logic and observation.

But Konnikova doesn't stop at fiction and science. She also advocates practising a zen-like centredness, especially in times of crisis, because she believes it is most difficult to ap…