By Eduardo Porter, Portfolio/Penguin Group, $27.95
New York Times editorial writer and longtime journalist Eduardo Porter offers an engaging rumination proving the adage that everything has its price. And he means everything: work, women, even faith and the future.
Porter explores the factors we weigh, consciously and unconsciously, in making decisions about things we don’t traditionally think of as having prices. And he shows that in every imaginable context our choices are influenced by circumstances and our available alternatives — more than by finance and logic.
Such thinking helps explain numerous apparent paradoxes that Porter highlights, including the fact that people seem more willing to give blood for free than if they are paid $25, and more willing to travel across town to save $20 on a $100 sweater than $20 on a $1,000 computer. Time is worth more or less money depending on who is spending it.
Laura Impellizzeri, The Associated Press
