Let's Talk About Books

So, since I was a kid Batman has always been one of my favorite superheroes. Grew up with the cartoons, Subzero was one of my favorite movies, etc. I also love psychology, thus why I majored in it. So when I learned that there was a book on the psychology of Batman's universe, I knew I had to read it. 

As the title suggests, Batman and Psychology is about the psychology of the Dark Knight and other characters in the universe. Topics discussed are the love interests (Bats and Catwoman 5Ever!),  the different Robins and how their relationship with Bruce reflects him, and whether or not a man running around in a rubber suit is "crazy". 

There isn't actually a lot to say about this book. I liked it. I thought Langley did a wonderful job of explaining psychological theories and applying them to the characters in the universe. In particular, I loved how he operationalized Batman, since that's the first thing we learned in my Quantitative Research Methods class. It was very scientific and covered all different areas of psychology, from personality theory to abnormal psychology to attachment theory. It also gave me new insights into many of my favorite characters, which I believe will make reading the comics (something I plan to actually start doing) more enjoyable. 

It's hard to say how accessible this book is to someone not familiar with psychology and it's theories since I had already studied most of what was discussed. I do think Langley explained things in a simple way without dumbing it down. In some ways that did bug me, since I did already understand them and so would have liked less explanation of the theory itself and more on how it applies. So it's a Catch-22, I think, since I think if he had skipped things then laypeople wouldn't understand. There were also sections that got a little dull, just because of how much explanation there was, though it wasn't too horrible. 

Final rating: 4 out of 5 stars. I might not read it cover to cover again for a while, but I'll definitely be referring to it and rereading specific sections.