Reviews

Happiness by Design: Finding Pleasure and Purpose in Everyday Life by Jonathan Cowley, Paul Dolan

tildahlia's review

3.0

Classic book that should have been an essay, but some interesting ideas here. I particularly liked the framework of pleasure and purpose to inform happiness and life satisfaction - it does encourage you to think about whether you have the balance right in your own life. Like many pop culture social science books there is a lot of oversimplification and not many shades of grey.

annagrac's review

3.0

The first chapter explains that happiness comes from having both pleasure and purpose in your life and gives a list of things you might want to focus on. I found it helpful to fill in the list and think of some New Years resolutions.

Then I got bored shortly after that and can’t even really remember what the rest of the book said.

hannahkiwi's review

4.0

The content was interesting - lots of snippets of surprising studies - and some of the practical suggestions sounded great. I stumbled a little over the basic premise of the book, that happiness is the most important thing; I disagree with the author, but not as much as I thought I did at the start of the book (he has a specific definition of happiness that he keeps referring to). The thing I disliked most, though, was the reader (I listened to the audio book); he put the stress of the sentences in the most odd places, as if he wasn't sure about the meaning. It came across as a bit computer-y on part.