The Art of Choosing

Sheena Iyengar's groundbreaking research on choice has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Institute of Mental Health, and the National Security Education Program, as well as by private institutions. In 2001, she received the Presidential Early Career Award and in 2005 she was invited to serve as a fellow at Princeton's Institute for Advanced Study. She holds degrees from UPenn, The Wharton School of Business, and Stanford University (from which she also received the prestigious Best Dissertation Award in 1998, for her work "Choice and its Discontents.") She is a professor at Columbia University.

Iyengar's work is regularly cited in the media, in periodicals as diverse as Fortune and Time magazines, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, as well as on National Public Radio and in books such as Blink by Malcolm Gladwell and The Paradox of Choice by Barry Schwartz. She lives in New York City.

Why would you choose to listen to this audiobook? As Sheena Iyengar points out in her engaging study, our choices are part of a constantly changing interactive relationship with our environment. We choose our clothes, for example, to distinguish ourselves from what we perceive to be "average," and yet we don't want to stand out too much. We fiercely believe in choosing our own life partners, yet 20 years after tying the knot, people in arranged marriages tend to be happier. Before the fall of Communism, Eastern Europeans were unhappy about their limited consumer choices, yet years after the fall many of them find consumer choice to be a prison. Orlagh Cassidy narrates with a scholarly, balanced sensibility that keeps the work appealing. She adds an empathetic touch when recounting Iyengar's anecdotes about her childhood and Sikh extended family. Those who loved BLINK, THE WISDOM OF CROWDS, or FREAKONOMICS are sure to enjoy this. R.W.S. © AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine