Nudge by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein

In which we learn about how simple nudges could help us make better decisions.

Nudge is about how people make less than optimal choices, as determined by themselves or by other standards. We eat more than we know we should, work out and save less, yet it's hard for most of us to do what we know we should. Nudge is about how we (or in some cases some third party) can cause better choices to be made in simple ways.

One Perfect Day, by Rebecca Mead

One Perfect Day: The Selling of the American Wedding, by Rebecca Mead.  Penguin, 2007.  245 pp.  978-0-14-311384-3.

... in which we learn about the American wedding industry and the culture surrounding it.

In One Perfect Day, Rebecca Mead takes us on a tour of bridal industry conferences, wedding dress factories, decoration companies, and all of the other aspects that contribute to the $161 billion wedding industry in America.  She interviews several professional wedding planners, and attends conferences and expos to get a feel for what both the professionals and the brides experience over the course of planning a wedding and reception.  She explores the wedding dress industry, and its move from proudly-American-made dresses to large factories in China.  Mead spends one fascinating chapter exploring the current trend for the "traditional" at a wedding, while still keeping the wedding personalized and modern.  We also get a chapter on officiants, and the many different officiants on offer to a couple, religious or not.  She explores the wedding niche markets on offer in places like Gatlinburg, TN and Las Vegas, NV.  The whole book comes together in a very interesting look at the business of weddings and what this massive industry says about American culture.