I Blinked and Got Nudged Into a Blunder

Bring it, Gladwell! The most recent entry is a direct challenge to the New Yorker scribe's thesis: in fact, we don't really "blink" out decisions; we carefully weigh emotion and reason to make informed choices. Using advancements in neuroscience, Lehrer, 27, makes it all about us, imploring the reader to "know thyself," our emotional impulses and why exactly we do what we do.

Decision time: Use science and self-knowledge to steer straight.

Two University of Chicago professors examine how the tiniest details affect decision making, and offer guidance on steering ourselves (and, more important, others) toward making better choices. They argue that social and civic policies could gently "nudge" people toward the option that's best for everyone.

Decision time: Save the planet, save yourself. Do-gooders, policymakers, this one's for you.

With a historian's approach, Shore takes the adage about learning from past mistakes and turns it on its head, arguing that Thomas Edison, George Orwell and George W. Bush screwed up for the same reasons you do. Why? Shore identifies seven "cognition traps" like "static cling" (refusing to accept changing circumstances) and "infomania" (obsessively gathering information). Decision time: Self-help for history buffs.

MIT behavioral scientist Ariely conducts wacky experiments (example: test subjects watch porn while completing a survey on a computer) to challenge the assumption that humans are basically rational beings—and to demonstrate that mistakes are systematic and, yes, predictable.

Decision time: If you want to know how our irrationality affects markets, try this empirical approach to the field. Also: look, an original book jacket!