“[A] lively, wide-ranging study… The footnotes have a David Foster Wallace-like wit as Vanderbilt calls our attention to such issues as whether people find donuts less yummy if they taste them in a salmon cannery and whether rats enjoy grape Kool-Aid more if it is infused directly into their stomachs… Convincing… Quite funny… Clear and engaging… He is to be commended for the sheer range of material he makes accessible.” — Lisa Zeidner, The Washington Post

“To answer an age-old question – ‘Why do we like the things we like?’ – Vanderbilt navigates philosophy, economics, psychology, neurology and data science… As Vanderbilt explores the enigmatic forces driving these decisions, he paints an engaging, multilayered… picture of taste.” — Benjamin Leszcz, The Globe and Mail

“A brave and timely investigation… engulfed as we are by an ocean of science and punditry that presents human behaviour as something that can be codified, predicted and even synthesized. Swimming cheerfully against that tide, Vanderbilt makes a compelling case that most of our choice-making defies those attempts. The nature of taste in fact remains stubbornly mysterious, despite our compulsion to exercise it – and despite how that compulsion increasingly shapes modern life… Clever… Persuasive and personal. There’s no judgment here. The author leaves that job to us.” — Bruce Philp, National Post