<![CDATA[Stumbling on Happiness]]>

false <![CDATA[Stumbling on Happiness]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1170459259m/56627.jpg 56627 17 Do you know what makes you happy? Daniel Gilbert would bet that you think you do, but you are most likely wrong. In his witty and engaging new book, Harvard professor Gilbert reveals his take on how our minds work, and how the limitations of our imaginations may be getting in the way of our ability to know what happiness is. Sound quirky and interesting? It is! But just to be sure, we asked bestselling author (and master of the quirky and interesting) Malcolm Gladwell to read Stumbling on Happiness, and give us his take. Check out his review below. --Daphne Durham <hr size="1">Guest Reviewer: Malcolm Gladwell <img src="http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0316172324.01.SWATCHXX.jpg" size="THUMB" border="0" align="left">Malcolm Gladwell is the author of bestselling books Blink and The Tipping Point, and is a staff writer for The New Yorker. Several years ago, on a flight from New York to California, I had the good fortune to sit next to a psychologist named Dan Gilbert. He had a shiny bald head, an irrepressible good humor, and we talked (or, more accurately, he talked) from at least the Hudson to the Rockies--and I was completely charmed. He had the wonderful quality many academics have--which is that he was interested in the kinds of questions that all of us care about but never have the time or opportunity to explore. He had also had a quality that is rare among academics. He had the ability to translate his work for people who were outside his world. Now Gilbert has written a book about his psychological research. It is called Stumbling on Happiness, and reading it reminded me of that plane ride long ago. It is a delight to read. Gilbert is charming and funny and has a rare gift for making very complicated ideas come alive. Stumbling on Happiness is a book about a very simple but powerful idea. What distinguishes us as human beings from other animals is our ability to predict the future--or rather, our interest in predicting the future. We spend a great deal of our waking life imagining what it would be like to be this way or that way, or to do this or that, or taste or buy or experience some state or feeling or thing. We do that for good reasons: it is what allows us to shape our life. And it is by trying to exert some control over our futures that we attempt to be happy. But by any objective measure, we are really bad at that predictive function. We're terrible at knowing how we will feel a day or a month or year from now, and even worse at knowing what will and will not bring us that cherished happiness. Gilbert sets out to figure what that's so: why we are so terrible at something that would seem to be so extraordinarily important? In making his case, Gilbert walks us through a series of fascinating--and in some ways troubling--facts about the way our minds work. In particular, Gilbert is interested in delineating the shortcomings of imagination. We're far too accepting of the conclusions of our imaginations. Our imaginations aren't particularly imaginative. Our imaginations are really bad at telling us how we will think when the future finally comes. And our personal experiences aren't nearly as good at correcting these errors as we might think. I suppose that I really should go on at this point, and talk in more detail about what Gilbert means by that--and how his argument unfolds. But I feel like that might ruin the experience of reading Stumbling on Happiness. This is a psychological detective story about one of the great mysteries of our lives. If you have even the slightest curiosity about the human condition, you ought to read it. Trust me. --Malcolm Gladwell <hr noshade="noshade" size="1" class="bucketDivider" /><div class="bucket"> Very fun non-fiction read...useful for writers of fictionalized memoirs as well as career changers. I laughed out loud - a real smart alecky, nothing-is-sacred author. A Harvard Psychologist discusses via research how our memory's falliabilities and our psychological needs interfere with our ability to predict future happiness and make realistic plans for ourselves. 152688 book 2006 Stumbling on Happiness total:2954|5:513|4:1112|3:988|2:278|1:63| 2954 10596 4879 724 4 11 false false Sat Aug 04 13:45:10 -0700 2007 Tue Sep 18 14:52:22 -0700 2007 more...]]> 5 12 false false Sat Feb 21 05:06:52 -0800 2009 Sun Feb 22 03:57:59 -0800 2009 more...]]> 3 8 false true Fri Apr 11 19:56:17 -0700 2008 Thu May 01 15:06:00 -0700 2008 We predict the future based on past memories

BUT our past memories are falliable: we tend to fill in details in our memories - we remember things not as they actually happened, but as we think they happened when we think about them i...more...]]> 4 5 false false Fri Jun 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Fri Oct 12 08:27:45 -0700 2007 Fri Oct 12 08:31:23 -0700 2007
He uses one of the most humorous and accessible non-fiction, science-related writi...more...]]> 3 3 false false Sun Apr 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Sun Apr 29 05:16:10 -0700 2007 Sat May 05 06:40:42 -0700 2007
May 2007, upon completion: Update...

Ultimately, I decided to give this book ...more...]]> 3 2 false false Mon May 12 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Tue May 13 03:47:22 -0700 2008 Tue May 13 05:58:21 -0700 2008
So, to be clear: "Stumbling ...more...]]> 4 1 false false Sun Mar 15 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Thu Mar 05 06:36:51 -0800 2009 Sun Mar 15 11:37:53 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 2 false false Thu Jul 17 22:45:17 -0700 2008 Thu Jul 17 22:47:17 -0700 2008 4 1 false false Mon Aug 11 05:58:33 -0700 2008 Wed Aug 20 11:27:58 -0700 2008 more...]]> 3 2 false false Thu May 29 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Tue May 27 10:57:49 -0700 2008 Thu May 29 20:59:11 -0700 2008 more...]]> 3 2 false false Tue Apr 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Tue Mar 25 09:25:36 -0700 2008 Tue Mar 25 09:25:52 -0700 2008 that happy to begin with. So, I get it, our perception is flawed. Our ability to remember, perceive and predict is not well ...more...]]> 4 1 true false Tue Aug 01 00:00:00 -0700 2006 Sat Dec 01 08:59:43 -0800 2007 Mon Dec 03 07:35:55 -0800 2007 more...]]> 3 1 false false Mon Oct 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Tue Oct 02 20:02:39 -0700 2007 Sat Oct 27 14:09:12 -0700 2007
Gilbert is clearly a ma...more...]]> 1 2 true false Sun Jul 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Fri Aug 03 10:15:43 -0700 2007 Tue Aug 07 10:53:44 -0700 2007 more...]]> 4 1 false false Mon Apr 14 05:41:45 -0700 2008 Mon Apr 14 05:55:20 -0700 2008 more...]]> 5 1 false false Wed Apr 23 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Thu Feb 21 19:10:47 -0800 2008 Sun Apr 27 11:57:05 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 0 false false Fri Apr 03 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Thu Apr 02 21:38:10 -0700 2009 Thu Apr 02 21:43:27 -0700 2009 more...]]> 2 0 false false Fri Oct 20 00:00:00 -0700 2006 Mon Nov 09 15:20:41 -0800 2009 Mon Nov 09 15:20:41 -0800 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Thu Sep 17 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Thu Sep 17 09:44:34 -0700 2009 Thu Sep 17 09:50:01 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Sun Jul 19 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Sep 07 16:46:37 -0700 2009 Mon Sep 07 16:48:47 -0700 2009 more...]]> http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=56627