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About
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.
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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Reviews
"Willard Spiegelman's Seven Pleasures mounts a gentle and persuasive argument for what years ago would have been called a more civilized life. And it reminds us what we owe ourselves: that attempt to appreciate as fully as possible that we are here, right now, wherever here may be."
Jim Shepard, author of Like You'd Understand, Anyway
"Willard Spiegelman has written a tidy cordial of a book. Like a soigné combination of Don Giovanni and a college dean, he serves his nectar with a sassy, ironic instructiveness. He gets life right."
Wayne Koestenbaum, author of Hotel Theory
"Few happy people write books, but when they do, they confer the blessings of wisdom and their sanguine nature on the unhappy many. I learned so much from Seven Pleasures. I felt that Willard Spiegelman was personally walking me through all the steps necessary to dance the tango of bliss that he has so delightfully mastered."
Edmund White, author of Hotel de Dream