A good and funny publication by a prominent Harvard psychologist, which uses groundbreaking study and (often hilarious) anecdotes showing us why we’re therefore lousy at predicting exactly what will produce us happy – and what we are able to do about any of it.

Most of us spend our lives steering ourselves toward the very best of all possible futures, and then get that tomorrow hardly ever turns out as we had expected. Why? As Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert explains, when people make an effort to imagine what the future will keep, they make about Stumbling on Pleasure some fundamental and consistent errors. Just as memory plays tricks on us whenever we try to appear backward in time, therefore does imagination play tricks when we try to look forward.

Using cutting-edge study, much of it original, Gilbert shakes, cajoles, persuades, tips and jokes us into receiving the actual fact that happiness is not actually what or where we thought it was. Among the unforeseen questions he poses: What makes conjoined twins believe it or not happy than the general human population? When you are out to consume, is it easier to order your most liked dish every time, or even to try something fresh? If Ingrid Bergman hadn’t got on the plane at the end of Casablanca, would she and Bogey have been better off?

Smart, witty, accessible and laugh-out-loud funny, Stumbling on Happiness brilliantly describes everything science has to tell us about the uniquely individual capability to envision the near future, and how likely we are to enjoy it whenever we get there.