It was more than century ago that Oscar Wilde famously observed that "people know the price of everything and the value of nothing".
In Priceless, we now have the proof. William Poundstone's book makes complicated economic and psychological concepts palatable by using a numble, colloquial style in refreshingly short chapters . . . Dozens of fascinating topics are explored ... At the end you will be left wondering what money and prices really mean — the dizzying quirky irrational sort of wonder that Alice found in "Wonderland".
It's the best book on consumer psychology I have read since my student days when Vance Packard's bestseller of the 1960s, The Hidden Persuaders, was a must-read.
Beginning with the controversial lawsuit in which a jury awarded $2.9 million in damages to a woman who had spilled a scalding cup of McDonald's coffee on herself, William Poundstone presents a readable history of how we are subtly manipulated into paying more (or less) for goods and services—and the research that attempts to explain our baffling and irrational susceptibility to pricing.
I promise you, grocery shopping will never seem so simple again after you have learned how much work goes into assigning a price to a box of cereal.
So if you can get this book for under $100, grab it! After you read it, you will better understand why the price you paid felt like a bargain.
