The Paradox of Choice - Barry Schwartz

Subtitled Why More is Less: How the Culture of Abundance Robs Us of Satisfaction, this interesting text explores the common perception that more choice equals more freedom, and finds that the converse is true.
Schwartz opens with the incident that first alerted him to this counter-intuitive idea, jeans shopping. This was a task he thought relatively straight forward, but he soon discovered that, since the last time he bought a pair of 'just regular' jeans, the world of denim pants had expanded, offering him a vast variety of colours, lengths, closures, treatments (acid wash, stone wash...) and six types of fit from fitted to extra baggy. What was once a five minute purchase had become a task that occupied not only significantly more time but also a elicited a lot of concern where once there was none, including anxiety about making the wrong choice.
And it's this aspect that Schwartz discusses the most. The more choice we have, he says, the greater the likelihood that we'll be paralysed by fear of picking the wrong, or perhaps least good, option. And experiments show that the more options there are to choose from the less likely we are to make a decision - shoppers given a choice of six types of jam are far more likely to buy some that those confronted with twenty four varieties.
This disparity between what we think we want and what we actually want runs across the board - though up to 65% of people say they'd want to pick their own cancer treatment, more than 88% leave treatment modalities to their physician, while doctors faced with choosing between two medications or referring to a specialist are twice as likely to make a referral as doctors asked to chose between one medication or referral.
There are too many really interesting facts raised in this book for me to do them justice in this review. So my take home message - you can save yourself a lot of stress by deciding that sometimes 'good enough' is better than hunting until you find 'the best' regardless of whether that's a jumper, a restaurant or a house; making rules that limit some of your choices (eg only go to two shops when looking for crockery, only drink one glass of wine at dinner) will streamline your life; avoid reversible decisions (like being able to return items to shops) because that increases your potential for regret; work out what decisions are important to you (where to work, who to spend time with, for example) and what aren't (which kind of pasta to buy, where to have dinner tonight) then focus on those choices; be grateful for and appreciate what you have instead of thinking about what you don't; choose to regret less often; be aware that we quickly adapt to things so that something that brought up great pleasure rapidly becomes taken for granted and less pleasurable.
I've yet to out these changes into action but look forward to making them part of my life - Alex

The Mammoth Book of Women’s Erotic Fantasies – Sonia Florens (Ed)

In 1973 Nancy Friday published a groundbreaking text, My Secret Garden, a collection of women’s sexual fantasies that revealed women could be as daring, surprising and explicit as men. Over the next two decades she followed this up with three more collections, two of women's fantasies and one of men's. In all four cases the fantasies were presented thematically, biographical data was provided (including age), there was often an attempt by the narrators to explain or analyse their fantasies, and sections were interspersed with Friday’s analysis of the fantasies and fantasists.
This noughties revisit to the ground explored by Nancy Friday’s groundbreaking books skips straight over the clinical, objective phsychological analysis and interpretation of the writing and goes straight to the good stuff. The women represented come from Canada, the US, England, Scotland, Ireland, Australia, Germany and Puerto Rico, with no further biographical information given.
Rather than the somewhat brief and fragmented scenes narrated by Friday’s research participants, that sometimes included more than one scenario, or which described an outline of the fantasy rather than the scene itself, these women also seem less compelled to explain or justify their fantasies, and the scenarios are lovingly and completely described. In most cases each entry runs over eight pages, with one as few as six, and a few going for more than a dozen pages.
While themes including light sadomasochism, domination, lesbianism, power play, men with men, exhibitionism, and group sex are present, the more taboos elements present in Friday’s collections (including bestiality, rape, underage and incest fantasies) are absent from this more mainstream work. There is, however, likely to be something for most people, and I certainly found a few of the works particularly well written, well imagined and effective. – Alex

Why We Buy - Paco Underhill

Subtitled "The Science of Shopping", this accessible and absorbing work, written by the field's founder, is a fascinating insight into what makes us chose to buy what we buy. Underhill, an environmental psychologist, started out working for local governments looking at ways of imrpoving parks and other outdoor public spaces. In Why We Buy he discusses how he came to pioneer the study of shopping habits and behaviours, as well as some interesting insights into not only the way we act but also how companies encourage us to spend. Those of us trying to cut down on unnecessary purchases can pick up some handy hints on how to prevent our resistance to impulse buying being undermined - for a start, don't pick up a basket!
Underhill has an engaging voice and clearly loves his subject; he is able to convey that in his writing with ease and grace. Themes seamlessly emerge and are integrated into the work as a whole, and my first impulse when I finished was to check if others of his work were available. If you have an interest in shopping psychology, retail marketing and advertising, or why you go out to get a litre of milk and come back with two trolley loads of shopping, this is the book for you. - Alex

Televised Morality - Gregory Stevenson

Subtitled The Case of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, this scholarly but readibly treatise explores the role of moral reasoning and consequence in the Buffyverse, clearly articulating how underinformed criticism of the series, at least on this front, is flawed.
Stevenson has read the series like a text, and amply supports his individual claims about the program (that violence is actually less graphic than most other programs, that sex is not graphic, that there are serious consequences, that there is a strong moral ethos in each arc, and that critics look solely at individual events rather than the context in which they occur).
I am a big fan of the series, and found myself nodding in agreement quite often. As Stevenson beautifully puts it: "[the narrative] is a kind of Trojan Horse that sneaks in a message while the viewer is distracted by the pretty horse. In the case of Buffy the Vampire Slayer the monsters and demons are narrative vehicles for a moral message."
Being very familiar with the series, I don't know how easy the references would be to follow for those new to or unfamiliar with it. On the other hand, I suspect that those critical to it (of which there are legion) will not be interested in reading this kind of analysis, even if they would be the ones to most greatly benefit. If you have been wondering why so many people became so enarmoured of a program which blended the supernatural with a perky blonde, this may give you an idea why it's also provoked the biggest volume of academic attention and literature of any popular culture artifact. - Alex