The Upside of Irrationality: The Unexpected Benefits of Defying Logic - Dan Ariely

Behavioral economist and New York Times bestselling author of Predictably Irrational Dan Ariely returns to offer a much-needed take on the irrational decisions that influence our dating lives, our workplace experiences, and our general behaviour, up close and personal. In The Upside of Irrationality, behavioral economist Dan Ariely will explore the many ways in which our behaviour often leads us astray in terms of our romantic relationships, our experiences in the workplace, and our temptations to cheat. Blending everyday experience with groundbreaking research, Ariely explains how expectations, emotions, social norms and other invisible, seemingly illogical forces skew our reasoning abilities. Among the topics Dan explores are: * What we think will make us happy and what really makes us happy; * How we learn to love the ones we are with; * Why online dating doesn't work, and how we can improve on it; * Why learning more about people make us like them less; * Why large bonuses can make CEOs less productive; * How to really motivate people at work; * Why bad directions can help us; * How we fall in love with our ideas; * How we are motivated by revenge; and * What motivates us to cheat. Drawing on the same experimental methods that made Predictably Irrational such a hit, Dan will emphasize the important role that irrationality plays in our day-to-day decisionmaking-not just in our financial marketplace, but in the most hidden aspects of our lives.

Paper Promises: Money, Debt and the New World Order - Philip Coggan

In today's financial climate, we are all, naturally, obsessed by debt. In almost every aspect of our life we experience it - on our credit cards, mortgages, bank loans and student loans. But where has this debt come from? How does it work? What is any money really worth? And what promises do we need to believe to keep the whole system afloat?

In this fascinating look at money through the ages - including our own unstable future - award-winning financial journalist Philip Coggan examines the flawed structure of the global finance systems as they exist today, and asks, with deeper imbalances that the world is currently facing, what's actually at stake.

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius - David Eggers

At the age of 22, Dave Eggers became both an orphan and a "single mother" when his parents died within five months of one another of unrelated cancers. In the ensuing sibling division of labour, Dave is appointed unofficial guardian of his eight-year-old brother, Christopher. The two live together in semi-squalor, decaying food and sports equipment scattered about, while Eggers worries obsessively about child-welfare authorities, molesting babysitters and his own health. His child-rearing strategy swings between making his brother's upbringing fun and performing bizarre developmental experiments on him. (Case in point: his idea of suitable bedtime reading is John Hersey's Hiroshima.) A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius is also, perhaps less successfully, about being young and hip and out to conquer the world (in an ironic, media-savvy, Generation-X way, naturally). In the early 1990s, Eggers was one of the founders of the very funny Might Magazine, and he spends a fair amount of time here on Might, the hipster culture of San Francisco's South Park and his own efforts to get on to MTV's Real World. This sort of thing doesn't age very well--but then, Eggers knows that. There's no criticism you can come up with that he hasn't put into A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius already. "The book thereafter is kind of uneven," he tells us regarding the contents after page 109, and while that's true, it's still uneven in a way that is funny and heartfelt and interesting. All this self-consciousness could have become unbearably arch. It's a testament to Eggers's skill as a writer--and to the heartbreaking particulars of his story--that it doesn't. Eggers comes from the most media-saturated generation in history--so much so that he can't feel an emotion without the sense that it's already been felt for him. What may seem like postmodern noodling is really just Eggers writing about pain in the only honest way available to him. Oddly enough, the effect is one of complete sincerity, and--especially in its concluding pages--this memoir as metafiction is affecting beyond all rational explanation.

Petite Mort - Beatrice Hitchman

Mesdames et Messieurs, presenting La Petite Mort, or, A Little Death ...

A silent film, destroyed in a fire in 1914 at the Pathé studio, before it was seen even by its director.

A lowly seamstress, who makes the costumes she should be wearing, but believes her talent - and the secret she keeps too - will soon get her a dressing room of her own.

A famous - and dashing - creator of spectacular cinematic illusions, husband to a beautiful, volatile actress, the most adored icon of the Parisian studios.

All fit together, like scenes in a movie. And as you will see, this plot has a twist we beg you not to disclose ...

Salt, Sugar, Fat - Michael Moss

From a Pulitzer Prize–winning investigative reporter at The New York Times comes the explosive story of the rise of the processed food industry and its link to the emerging obesity epidemic. Michael Moss reveals how companies use salt, sugar, and fat to addict us and, more important, how we can fight back.