These are a few of my favorite... sins?!?

Our Favorite Sins: The Sins We Commit and How You Can Quit, by Todd D. Hunter, presents itself as a guide to understanding and overcoming the most common sins.

"The goal… is to cause you to want a real experience of the real God so much that your other disordered desires and wants are put in second place… not simply to stay away from sin… [but] to steer clear of temptation by reordering your thoughts feelings, desires, and will by wanting God and wanting to derive your life from and live it within the story he's telling… to become passionately focused on God and his stuff." (page 113)

The first half of the book presents the reader with clichéd examples of individuals based on what Hunter has deemed to be people's "favorite sins." He uses these characters (with corny alliterative names, like Procrastinating Preston) to describe the challenges that we all face in our daily lives. The second half of the book Hunter describes ancient ways and practices of the Christian faith, such as solitude, fasting, and silence, as means of overcoming temptation and reordering our desires.

As a scientist I was intrigued by the promise that the book was supported by statistical evidence—a survey conducted by the Barna Group. Unfortunately, the author's analyses were based entirely upon assumptions and inferences ("I think x means…" and "…given my experience y probably accounts for z"). This was quite disappointing.
I also am not convinced that the top five "sins" Americans deal with are anxiety, procrastination, overeating, overuse of media, and laziness. Although these are not the "biggies" that we all recognize as sins (like larceny and lust), they are everyday weaknesses that many of us fall prey to, either occasionally or consistently.
Our Favorite Sins is a quick and easy read. The inclusion of short prayers and inspiration for reflection at the end of each chapter provides a valuable reminder to think about what has been read, rather than barreling through the text without taking time to consider it in the light of one's own life. Titled "Ancient and Fruitful Practices", these prayers are predominantly drawn from Anglican liturgies. (The author is an Anglican bishop.) This book is far longer than I feel was warranted for the content it contained. However, the author's basic premise is sound—overcoming sin and temptation requires a reordering of one's desires. The book reads more like a self-help book than a theological text, but I think that it is based in solid Christian faith.
To summarize I think Our Favorite Sins is a decent book—not great but not bad.

Note: I received a review copy of this book from Thomas Nelson's BookSneeze reviewer program. I was not obligated to write a good review, but only my honest opinion.