Our Guides to Happiness

Dozens of new books have been published in the last few years that claim to help us get, keep or understand happiness.

Daniel Nettle, a biological psychologist and author of Happiness: The Science Behind Your Smile, writes that humans are notoriously bad at knowing what will make them happy, so the happiness “scientists” keep writing books to guide us in this pursuit. In The Geography of Bliss: One Grump's Search for the Happiest Places in the World, Eric Weiner comes to the conclusion that happiness isn't about economics or geography. Jennifer Michael Hecht states that the basic modern assumptions about how to be happy are nonsense in The Happiness Myth: Why What We Think Is Right Is Wrong. In Stumbling on Happiness, Harvard professor Daniel Gilbert draws on philosophy and neuroscience to discuss where we go wrong in our pursuit of happiness. And, in Against Happiness: In Praise of Melancholy, Eric Wilson questions the whole idea of striving for happiness.

Other more recent examples of books on happiness include:
The How of Happiness Happiness: Unlocking the Mysteries of Psychological Wealth
Happiness Is an Inside Job
Be Happy Without Being Perfect
Happy for No Reason
Happy at Last: the Thinking Person's Guide to Finding Joy
Reordered Love, Reordered Lives : Learning the Deep Meaning of Happiness

And for the most recent happiness news, several new studies conducted by Todd Kashdan, associate professor of psychology at George Mason University. say that we should just be grateful—it’s the best way to achieve happiness..