Alchemy Audiobook By Rory Sutherland cover art

Alchemy

The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense

Preview
Get this deal Try for $0.00
Offer ends December 16, 2025 11:59pm PT.
Prime logo Prime members: New to Audible? Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Just $0.99/mo for your first 3 months of Audible Premium Plus.
1 audiobook per month of your choice from our unparalleled catalog.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, podcasts, and Originals.
Auto-renews at $14.95/mo after 3 months. Cancel anytime.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Alchemy

By: Rory Sutherland
Narrated by: Rory Sutherland
Get this deal Try for $0.00

$14.95/mo after 3 months. Cancel anytime. Offers ends December 16, 2025 11:59pm PT.

$14.95/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $14.52

Buy for $14.52

Get 3 months for $0.99 a month

Random House presents the audiobook edition of Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense, written 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 seven 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.

©2019 Rory Sutherland (P)2019 Random House Audiobooks
Marketing Marketing & Sales Psychology Psychology & Mental Health
All stars
Most relevant
Enjoyable and insightful. A great plus that it is read by the author. Sometimes that’s a bad idea, but for this book it’s brilliant.

Edutainment at its best

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

What people say and what they actually do are different. This is one book you can’t even read with speed of 1x, you got to make it less than that to imbibe the concepts and insights. Really amazing work.

Amazing insight

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

Perhaps it's time to admit logic is great, BUT it's really not how we make decisions (and I started programming in basic at 12) we tried the logical and look where that's getting us.

Time is running out for our kids

and we are sitting around discussing numbers

Perhaps reframing could solve some of our biggest global problems and allow us to actually start getting the planet fixed before we can't breathe the air.

Loved the ideas and have used many when the math just was not enough, many times, in the last twenty years as I was looking for solutions not a pat on the back.

People's livelihoods were at stake. Now it's our Kids lives we are deciding because we cannot see, past our own supieor intellects as the master of our minds.

Shame we value powerful ideas only when they appear logical, fact is, it's not the logical brain that gives us deep insight

and soon with AI this type of thinking is the only thing that will have any meaning and we hammer it out of most of our kids

Great book good stories

Consider the ideas, they have saved the companies I have worked for and with millions

And when the reward saves families and pays paychecks? Why not?

Take a challenge, try one suggestion it, may just save, your skin, your business, your friend or loved one, or we keep doing the same and we all know which ward that may lead to......

perhaps the only way to solve, the unsolvable

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

the great rory is back with a banger of a book about marketing alchemy. what's not to love?

My nigga Rory Sutherland

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

The Author is such a different thinker; I thoroughly enjoyed every minute. My mind is more open now

Amazing

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

See more reviews