Iyengar offers nothing more than a survey of other people's work on various aspects of social cognition & culture related to a very broad definition indeed of "choice." There is nothing new here, and although Iyengar is a sedulous writer, she is not an effective one: …more her attempt fits in with the trend in the past decade to pack a popular science book full of anecdotes and factoids, then pretend that this amounts to something more than a heap.

The surprising thing is, Iyengar has supposedly done her own research on choice. Why, then, didn't she build her book around that research? Far better, for those who are interested in this topic, are books built with a real theme, e.g. "The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less," by Barry Schwartz. Schwartz actually has something to say, and he says it in fewer pages than Iyengar takes to say nothing. (less)