Bad Science, by Ben Goldacre

Suddenly you realised that those claims of the "eye lashes 90% more luscious" type really are as unlikely as you always thought - certainly helped me become a more sceptical consumer of wild promises.

Must read for people everywhere, enlightening

This book should be compulsory reading for anyone interested or indeed confused by health scares, alternative or complementary medicine. Even if you're just plain interested in the way natural therapists, pharmaceutical companies, journalists and industry report, distort and mislead, this book is fascinating. Ben Goldacre takes you through the process of medical trials from start to finish and shows how the results are manipulated for a whole host of reasons - or just not published at all. By the end you'll realise why homeopathy is entirely dependent on the placebo effect and why the MMR 'scare' should scare no-one. A truly brilliant and entertaining read - you'll laugh your way through it and learn a lot on the way.