Some posts on happiness

Posted on | April 18, 2010 | No Comments

A little bit of a round-up from my reading morning from book blogs and most things I’ve come across, happily, have been on, well, happiness…

• Without Bounds on the dificulty of capturing happiness in literature.
• Lizzie Siddal on two novellas about happiness, and her own take on what constitutes happiness (a blue sky – looking out of the gloomy window here in Newcastle, I’d agree; and a new book; again, agree).
• And then Book Snob, just having a joyful happy day.
• And Simon Quicke’s joy at his son starting reading.

So, it might make me pick up and read a book on my own bookshelf: Matthieu Ricard’s book Happiness. And courtesy of Jujubes and Aspirins from a post just this Friday, a quote from that book:

Is happiness a skill that, once acquired, endures through the ups and downs of life?

…For some people, talking about the search for happiness seems almost in bad taste. Protected by their armor of intellectual complacency, they sneer at it as they would at a sentimental novel.

How did such devaluation come about? Is it a reflection of the artificial happiness offered by the media? Is it a result of the failed efforts we use to find genuine happiness? Are we supposed to come to terms with unhappiness rather than make a genuine and intelligent attempt to untangle happiness from suffering?

ADDED: Definitely something in the air this weekend. Another post, this time a review of A Glimpse at Happiness.

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