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chaosmavin's review against another edition
4.0
This book was the perfect intersection of "The Undoing Project" (which I recently read and loved) and Positive Psychology ( a current obsession of mine). It is very practical and easy to digest. That said there are a few exercises and the audio book format is definitely not the way to go. I would highly recommend getting a written word version. I will probably borrow it from our library system to revisit the exercises in depth and to re-read the third section. Actually if I can't convince you to get or read the full book just get it from your library and read the third part...it is so full of ideas on how you can raise your level of happiness by adopting new processes for how you approach any given day.
bianca89279's review against another edition
3.0
Not a bad book, but at the end of it, I couldn't quite say I learnt anything new, which probably it's not the author's fault.
It's the kind of book I was enjoying listening to it, agreeing with what Dolan was saying, but after a few hrs of finishing it I couldn't tell you what I learnt.
Arguably, this kind of books should be consumed in print rather than in audio format.
It's the kind of book I was enjoying listening to it, agreeing with what Dolan was saying, but after a few hrs of finishing it I couldn't tell you what I learnt.
Arguably, this kind of books should be consumed in print rather than in audio format.
jenn756's review
3.0
This was an interesting book. Dolan tackles happiness from a Social Scientist’s perspective rather than a psychology one, so he offers a lot of evidence and statistics for his hypothesises. He maintains happiness is the balance between purpose and pleasure, and different people will naturally veer one way or the other. Much of what he says his self-intuitive but nonetheless enlightening for that.
My gripe is much the same as everyone else’s – Paul Dolan is Metro man, a 30-something with perfect happy family and perfect job, and he talks about himself a lot. While people in that category do feel unhappy and are dissatisfied with their lives sometimes I would rather he concentrated on improving happiness for the lonely, the sick, disabled and isolated teenagers. I thought of myself at his age, and to be honest I don’t think I knew how privileged I was back then and neither does he. He talks glibly about sadness being part of the human condition but I don’t think he’s every really experienced it.
My other gripe is I bought this book in the UK and it’s written by a British writer, but it’s full of Americanisms and American spellings, obviously pandering to the American market. I have no problem with US writers doing this, you can’t expect anything else after all. But here they couldn’t be even bothered to make a British edition, so a mark down for that.
My gripe is much the same as everyone else’s – Paul Dolan is Metro man, a 30-something with perfect happy family and perfect job, and he talks about himself a lot. While people in that category do feel unhappy and are dissatisfied with their lives sometimes I would rather he concentrated on improving happiness for the lonely, the sick, disabled and isolated teenagers. I thought of myself at his age, and to be honest I don’t think I knew how privileged I was back then and neither does he. He talks glibly about sadness being part of the human condition but I don’t think he’s every really experienced it.
My other gripe is I bought this book in the UK and it’s written by a British writer, but it’s full of Americanisms and American spellings, obviously pandering to the American market. I have no problem with US writers doing this, you can’t expect anything else after all. But here they couldn’t be even bothered to make a British edition, so a mark down for that.
mike_brough's review against another edition
3.0
Not impressed. He appears to have taken a 5-page magazine article and stretched it out to book length.
sonham's review against another edition
4.0
Die erste Hälfte des Buches ist recht theoretisch. Der Autor definiert "Happiness" und erklärt, warum wir nicht so glücklich sind, wie wir sein könnten. Dies belegt er mir Studien.
Der zweite Teil ist deutlich praktischer und vor allem relativ leicht umsetzbar für jeden Einzelnen. Am Ende läuft es darauf hinaus, mehr Aufmerksamkeit auf das eigene Tun zu lenken und auf das, was einen glücklich macht.
Der zweite Teil ist deutlich praktischer und vor allem relativ leicht umsetzbar für jeden Einzelnen. Am Ende läuft es darauf hinaus, mehr Aufmerksamkeit auf das eigene Tun zu lenken und auf das, was einen glücklich macht.
smiley938's review against another edition
5.0
I enjoyed this book. It had some insightful bits that I hope to take with me. Also, the author works out a lot. He really wants you to know that.