Book notice: Daniel Gilbert’s Stumbling on Happiness

This is the kind of popular psych tome that journalists wish they had the scholarly knowledge to write but can’t and the kind of scholarly book that psychologists wish they had the wisdom and wit to write but don’t. Gilbert is easy to read, hilarious, insightful, and generally sounds like the kind of person you’d like to either take a class or drink beer with. Scientific yet down-to-earth, Gilbert guides the reader through exciting psychological research in the social sciences while sharing analogies from his own, often funny and relatable life experience . Did I mention this book is full of wisdom? It’d be easy to dismiss Stumbling on Happiness as just another pop psych book reporting on the newest glut of psych experiments, but it’s so much more than you’d expect from the New York Times Best-seller Title © and dust-jacket blurbs. A rare gem. 5/5

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