A review by rjkamaladasa
Going Solo: The Extraordinary Rise and Surprising Appeal of Living Alone by Eric Klinenberg

3.0

Written by a married man, Going Solo was a pleasantly optimistic take on the rise of singledom throughout the world. I learnt a few interesting facts in the first few chapters but the last chapters seem to be filled with anecdotes and what a bunch of people had to say about their experience with living alone. The problem with trying to build a thesis with this kind of evidence is that people tend to justifify how they live as a result of hindsight bias, there will be anchoring biases depending on which questions are asked first, there will be Focusing illusions due to the attention of events in life rather than non-events, and the list goes on.

The book could have gained much more appeal if there was more research done on the economics (how consumer markets have shifted due to the) rise of singledom.

The main take home point that I took from this book is that singledom, with the current ethical climate, is not going to be an accepted political force that easily. Even when they outnumber the married population. Why? I'll leave that for your imagination.