Daniel Gilbert’s Stumbling on Happiness is rightly popular (I had to wait some time before it became available at the local library). Despite the title, it’s not one of these “seven steps to real happiness” books. It’s more a book that tells you why people’s expectations of what will or should make them happy are often misplaced. Lots of interesting bits of information about how the mind works, and what it does and doesn’t do, which explained a lot to me. A couple of examples: why is it that when you take a photo of something, and then try to remember it, all you get is a mental image of the photo you took? Why is it that the ending of a movie has a larger effect on what you think about the movie than a random piece in the middle? All fascinating stuff and well worth reading if you want to understand why people do some of the things they do and think the way they do.
Which is not to say I don’t have quibbles with the book, I do, but those are minor. And mostly in the last chapter, where I wonder whether some of the surveys he quotes would have had different results had they been carried out in other countries or other cultures.
In all, I recommend reading this book if you’re at all interested in what makes people tick. Whether you agree with all the points he makes or not, it certainly will make you think about your own behaviour, and give you explanations for others’ behaviour that you may not have come up with otherwise.