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Essays on Ordinary Happiness
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
May 2009
On Sale: April 28, 2009
288 pages
ISBN: 0374239304
EAN: 9780374239305
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction
What does it mean to be happy? Americans have had an
obsession with “the pursuit of happiness” ever since the
Founding Fathers enshrined it—along with life and liberty—
as our national birthright. Whether it means the
accumulation of wealth or a more vaguely understood notion
of self-fulfillment or self-actualization, happiness has
been an inevitable, though elusive, goal. But it is hard to separate “real” happiness from the banal
self-help version that embraces mindless positive thinking.
And though we have two booming “happiness industries”—
religion, with its promise of salvation, and
psychopharmacology, with its promise of better living
through chemistry—each comes with its own problems and
complications. In Seven Pleasures, Willard Spiegelman takes a look at the
possibilities for achieving ordinary secular happiness
without recourse to either religion or drugs. In this
erudite and frequently hilarious book of essays, he
discusses seven activities that lead naturally and easily
to a sense of well-being. One of these—dancing—requires a
partner, and therefore provides a lesson in civility, or
good citizenship, as one of its benefits. The other six—
reading, walking, looking, listening, swimming, and writing—
are things one performs alone. Seven Pleasures is a
marvelously engaging guide to the pursuit of happiness, and
all its accompanying delights.
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