Beautiful Souls by Eyal Press

Beautiful Souls is a descriptive non-fiction that takes on a new perspective in history, focusing on four people who went against the norm when the norm was morally wrong. Instead of largely known hero's, Eyal writes about normal people who step out of line for what they believe is right. This book is set up in four different parts, each about a different person faced with a situation that will change their lives. Eyal does an expert job of writing down their experiences, what as a person they are like, and how the interviews went.

The author digs deep to find answers to seemingly spontaneous acts of courage from otherwise indifferent people. He has an excellent talent for finding others personality traits and describing their character. He manages to connect psychological theories to why these four acted so out of character when faced with a moral decision that held no consequence over their head if they went against what they believed was right.

I would recommend this to anyone who is a fan of psychology and history, and maybe even philosophers. Eyal Press delivers this book well, one of the compliments I feel that I can give him is he does not fall to what so many non-fiction writes tend to do and does not use unnecessary 'big' words. The words and sentences fall together smartly without any assistance from words that no one has heard of before. While I read this, it was evident he was a professional journalist and worked hard to gather as much information as possible on this topic.