Overview

Why is an artistic masterpiece worth millions more than a convincing forgery? Pleasure works in mysterious ways, as Paul Bloom reveals in this investigation of what we desire and why. Drawing on a wealth of surprising studies, Bloom investigates pleasures noble and seamy, lofty and mundane, to reveal that our enjoyment of a given thing is determined not by what we can see and touch but by our beliefs about that thing’s history, origin, and deeper nature.

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9780393340006

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Reviews

This book is a pearl, a work of great beauty and value, built up around a simple truth: that we are essentialists, tuned in to unseen order. -- Jonathan Haidt, author of The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom How Pleasure Works has one of the best discussions I've read of why art is pleasurable, why it matters to us, and why it moves us so. -- Daniel Levitin, author of This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession This book is not just a pleasure, but a revelation, by one of psychology's deepest thinkers and best writers. Lucid and fascinating, you'll want to read it slowly and savor the experience. -- Daniel Gilbert, author of Stumbling on Happiness In this eloquent and provocative book, Paul Bloom takes us inside the paradoxes of pleasure, exploring everything from cannibalism to Picasso to IKEA furniture. The quirks of delight, it turns out, are a delightful way to learn about the human mind. -- Jonah Lehrer, author of How We Decide Drawing on his own research as well as studies in neuroscience, behavioral economics, and philosophy, [Bloom] makes a powerful argument for essentialism at the crux of human pleasure. -- Maywa Montenegro - Seed Magazine A gracefully written book and a lot of fun. -- Peter D. Kramer - Slate Scholarly yet spy.... Bloom salts the book with all manner of pungent, apposite points.... A heartening, well-developed argument. -- Kirkus Reviews Sigmund Freud, Mr. Pleasure Principle himself, would have approved. -- Time Should stoke your neurons into a frenzy and leave you wanting more. -- Mary Carmichael - Newsweek.com A book that is different from the slew already out there on the general subject of happiness. No advice here about how to become happier by organizing your closest; Bloom is after something deeper than the mere stuff of feeling good. -- The New York Times Book Review

How Pleasure Works has one of the best discussions I’ve read of why art is pleasurable, why it matters to us, and why it moves us so.--Daniel Levitin, author of This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession

Author Information

Paul Bloom is a professor of psychology at Yale University. He is the author of Descartes’ Baby and How Pleasure Works. He has contributed to The Atlantic, the New York Times, Science, and Nature. He lives in New Haven, Connecticut.

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