Alchemy

The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense

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Alchemy

By: Rory Sutherland

Narrated by: Rory Sutherland

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Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense, written and read by Rory Sutherland.

To be brilliant, you have to be irrational

Why is Red Bull so popular – even though everyone hates the taste? Why do countdown boards on platforms take away the pain of train delays? And why do we prefer stripy toothpaste?

We think we are rational creatures. Economics and business rely on the assumption that we make logical decisions based on evidence.

But we aren’t, and we don’t.

In many crucial areas of our lives, reason plays a vanishingly small part. Instead we are driven by unconscious desires, which is why placebos are so powerful. We are drawn to the beautiful, the extravagant and the absurd – from lavish wedding invitations to tiny bottles of the latest fragrance. So if you want to influence people’s choices you have to bypass reason. The best ideas don’t make rational sense: they make you feel more than they make you think.

Rory Sutherland is the Ogilvy advertising legend whose TED Talks have been viewed nearly 7 million times. In his first book he blends cutting-edge behavioural science, jaw-dropping stories and a touch of branding magic, on his mission to turn us all into idea alchemists.

Rory SutherlandRory SutherlandVirgin Digital

Marketing & Sales

Psychology & Mental Health

Marketing & Sales Psychology & Mental Health

Critics' reviews

Wonderfully applicable to everything in life, and funny as hell

Brilliant, Brilliant, Brilliant … wonderfully heretical, naughty and funny … Uncommon sense on stilts

Veins of wisdom regarding human functioning emerge regularly and brilliantly from the pages. Don't miss this book.

Brings together complex theory with stories and plentiful humour to both captivate and entertain. It’s an important work for our era of apparent irrationality.

Both a book on human behavior and a rallying cry to stand up against the spreadsheet mafia dominating most government and corporate policies today

Stimulating and funny

[A] fun, quirky, hilarious page-turner…Sutherland is one of the all-time great raconteurs, polymaths, and ad men

Buy this book for the footnotes alone… As a committed devotee of rationalism, who thinks there is not enough of it in this world, I rationally ought to hate this book. Instead I loved it.

‘A must read for anyone who is in the people business’

Most relevant

A value add way of thinking to any conversation wrapped in entertaining anecdotes and ideas