I'm hooked to books on Behavioural Economics and any book that comes out (at a reasonable price in India !!) is a buy for me even if reasonably good. Dan Ariely's "Predictably Irrational" was a similar decision. And a wise one, I should add. The book starts on a premise that not only people are irrational but also predictably irrational, that is they are irrational all the time. And by basing decision choices on that premise, people can improve their decisions in all walks of life. It is the "all walks of life" that makes this book enjoyable and pertinent to almost everybody.
The book covers a wide range of decisions such as why FREE is an important decision making tool , why people can do inexplicable things when they are in a feeling of passion, why relativity is everything etc. This is only a small example list. There are many more in the book. Even those who are aware of their Behavioural Economics stuff will find this book very interesting. Some of the results of experiments are counter-intuitive and they will surprise the reader.
The only area of the book where I found myself trying to skip a few lines is the description of the experimental set ups. After a few descriptions, one may try to skip but don't as reading this is important to understand the outcome.
In all, I can say that this is a must-read book for anybody interested in behavioural economics, decision sciences or just plain economics. This book is on the lines of Robert Cialdini's 'Influence' and 'Stumbling on happiness' by Daniel Gilbert (Both are must reads especially 'Influence') . Let me also add that all self-help book readers should compulsorily read this. This is one of the most logical self-help book out there (of course don't tell this to the author. He might be aghast at the reference of this book as self-help!)
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