“Book reviews of "The Happiness Project," "Bluebird" and "Women, Work ... - Washington Post” plus 1 more |
| Book reviews of "The Happiness Project," "Bluebird" and "Women, Work ... - Washington Post Posted: 07 Feb 2010 09:03 PM PST Message from fivefilters.org: If you can, please donate to the full-text RSS service so we can continue developing it. Harper. 301 pp. $25.99 BLUEBIRD Women and the New Psychology of Happiness By Ariel Gore Farrar Straus Giroux. 196 pp. $24 WOMEN, WORK & THE ART OF SAVOIR FAIRE Business Sense & Sensibility By Mireille Guiliano Atria. 261 pp. $24.99 The happiness of American women was called into question recently by a study titled "The Paradox of Declining Female Happiness." Societal advances, the authors suggest, have not made women happier. I found the ensuing debate puzzling because, as far as I can tell, the study revealed only that women today are less likely to say they are happy. But if you're fretting about your happiness level, here are three books to boost your mood. These are not for anyone suffering a crisis or depression; in fact, they are not for anyone who is unhappy at all. They are for vaguely discontented women who sit on buses and suddenly think, "Hey, I'm not happy enough." That's exactly how Gretchen Rubin started her "Happiness Project." Once she realized she did not appreciate her wonderful life -- husband, children, health -- she set out to change her attitude. She defined happiness ("To be happy, I need to think about feeling good, feeling bad and feeling right, in an atmosphere of growth"), designed a chart to monitor her progress and assigned a goal to each month. In March, for example, the month to "Aim Higher," she started a blog on The Post's sister site Slate.com; that effort ended at the close of last year, but her postings continue on her own blog. The blog and book weave reports of her efforts -- de-cluttering her house, trying not to nag, tackling a new skill and imitating a spiritual master -- with analysis of other possible routes to happiness. The result is an easy, sometimes entertaining read, though the navel-gazing can be off-putting. But if you like hearing the details of someone else's vague discontent ("I wanted to save all these mementos . . . but I didn't know where to put them"), relish keeping charts, are game to try singing in the morning and think adding more chores to your life will increase your happiness, well, then, this book is perfect. Writer and journalist Ariel Gore delved into the issue of happiness when she learned that a Positive Psychology course is very popular at Harvard. She takes a more intellectual approach than Rubin does. In "Bluebird," Gore lays out some theories of happiness and relates a history of American attitudes about happiness and the effects those attitudes have had on women. She then dissects the epidemic of female depression and the current think-yourself-happy mania, casts a critical eye on recent studies and looks at strategies to increase happiness, though less earnestly than Rubin. A chapter about a convention of happiness scientists drags, and Gore, who now has her own blog on the Psychology Today Web site, can switch abruptly from being forthright and skeptical to scarily maudlin: "I'm writing this book as a living breathing love letter to you." But her research is absorbing, her idea of happiness as a dynamic force is appealing, and her conclusions seem sensible. For example, she writes that we can undo the negative results of bad times by "meeting our experiences with good humor, by actively seeking positive emotional experiences on the heels of our stress-fests or, at the very least, by allowing ourselves time to relax and imagine how our crappy day might fit into a larger, less crappy, context." If the idea of singing in the morning makes your head hurt, this is the one for you. Mireille Guiliano could not be more of a contrast to these women; one cannot picture her being even vaguely discontented. In "Women, Work and the Art of Savoir Faire," she wants to help women achieve more than business success: She wants to help them be happy and live a good life. She says, "That's why I dare to talk about style and clothes and food and wine and entertaining and life in a business book." The book is written in the same bright and breezy style as her "French Women Don't Get Fat," and the former Veuve Clicquot executive offers some nuggets of hard-nosed counsel, such as to work for a winning company and seek positions in accounting or finance that are more likely to lead to the chief executive suite than those in human resources or communications. Such strategies, however, are undermined by the rather retro savoir-faire advice: wear a light, fresh scent; a little black dress is essential; cloth napkins are a must for entertaining. And she provides recipes. Un peu bizarre. The route to happiness requires a lot of little steps. But you already know the recommended maneuvers: "Count your blessings," "Take care of yourself," "Love what you do." In other words, maybe all you have to do to be happy is listen to your parents. Elizabeth Chang is an editor of The Post's Sunday Magazine. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. |
| Posted: 05 Feb 2010 07:00 AM PST Message from fivefilters.org: If you can, please donate to the full-text RSS service so we can continue developing it. by Walter Dean Myers Egmont, 2009, $18.99, (unpaged) Recommended for ages 3-8. In this father-and-son collaboration, Walter Dean Myers and Christopher Myers give readers a colorful insight into who they are. The colorful collage of photos and illustrations is a true celebration of the life of a child and who that child can be. The words jump from the pages as the reader learns about all the different people that makes them who they are. "When you look in the mirror, who do you see?" — Cheryl Kay, Hoyt Library Children's Department For teens and young adults "If I Stay" by Gayle Forman Dutton Books, 2009, 208 pages, $16.99 Recommended for ages 14 and up Hailed as one of the best pieces of young adult fiction of 2009, "If I Stay" is the story of 17-year-old Mia and her decision on whether to fight her way out of a coma. After a tragic accident, she looks back on her life, her family, and her love of music to decide whether to stay or go. This is a beautiful, heart-wrenching novel that will pull in teenage readers, but is too good to be left only to the younger crowd. — Jessica Shepherd, Claytor Library For adults "Why Our Health Matters: A Vision of Medicine that Can Transform Our Future" by Andrew Weil, M.D. Hudson Street Press, 2009, 264 pages, $25.95 The Congressional debate on health care will not solve all the ills of our medical system. The U.S. spends huge amounts on medical care, but lags far behind most advanced nations in delivering timely and effective results. Weil's prescription for health care reform, as he has advocated for more than three decades, is integrative medicine — an approach that incorporates wellness and simple, natural cures into the scope of traditional medicine. A timely (and timeless) cure to our health care ills by a visionary and expert. — Sherrill Smith, assistant to the director of Saginaw Public Libraries You must accept the terms of service before you can post a comment. You must sign in to post a comment. We've upgraded our community features on MLive.com Learn more! »Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. |
| You are subscribed to email updates from Book-Reviews - Bing News To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610 | |
0 comments:
Post a Comment