Only Happiness Here

Author: Gabrielle Carey
Publisher: Univ. of Queensland Press
ISBN: 0702264482
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 219

Book Description
&‘When I discovered Elizabeth von Arnim, I found, for the first time, a writer who wrote about being happy.' Elizabeth von Arnim is one of the early twentieth century's most famous &– and almost forgotten &– authors. She was ahead of her time in her understanding of women and their often thwarted pursuit of happiness. Born in Sydney in the mid-1800s, she went on to write many internationally bestselling novels, marry a Prussian Count and then an English Lord, develop close friendships with H.G. Wells and E.M. Forster, and raise five children. Intrigued by von Arnim's extraordinary life, Gabrielle Carey sets off on a literary and philosophical journey to learn about this bold and witty author. More than a biography, Only Happiness Here is also a personal investigation into our perennial obsession with finding joy.

If He Had Been with Me

Author: Laura Nowlin
Publisher: Sourcebooks, Inc.
ISBN: 1402277849
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 338

Book Description
If he had been with me everything would have been different... I wasn't with Finn on that August night. But I should've been. It was raining, of course. And he and Sylvie were arguing as he drove down the slick road. No one ever says what they were arguing about. Other people think it's not important. They do not know there is another story. The story that lurks between the facts. What they do not know—the cause of the argument—is crucial. So let me tell you...

This Is Happiness

Author: Niall Williams
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1635574218
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 411

Book Description
NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE WASHINGTON POST and REAL SIMPLE A profound and enchanting new novel from Booker Prize-longlisted author Niall Williams about the loves of our lives and the joys of reminiscing. You don't see rain stop, but you sense it. You sense something has changed in the frequency you've been living and you hear the quietness you thought was silence get quieter still, and you raise your head so your eyes can make sense of what your ears have already told you, which at first is only: something has changed. The rain is stopping. Nobody in the small, forgotten village of Faha remembers when it started; rain on the western seaboard was a condition of living. Now--just as Father Coffey proclaims the coming of electricity--it is stopping. Seventeen-year-old Noel Crowe is standing outside his grandparents' house shortly after the rain has stopped when he encounters Christy for the first time. Though he can't explain it, Noel knows right then: something has changed. This is the story of all that was to follow: Christy's long-lost love and why he had come to Faha, Noel's own experiences falling in and out of love, and the endlessly postponed arrival of electricity--a development that, once complete, would leave behind a world that had not changed for centuries. Niall Williams' latest novel is an intricately observed portrait of a community, its idiosyncrasies and its traditions, its paradoxes and its inanities, its failures and its triumphs. Luminous and otherworldly, and yet anchored with deep-running roots into the earthy and the everyday, This Is Happiness is about stories as the very stuff of life: the ways they make the texture and matter of our world, and the ways they write and rewrite us.

The Happiness Project

Author: Gretchen Rubin
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 1443418196
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 354

Book Description
What if you could change your life--without changing your life? Gretchen had a good marriage, two healthy daughters, and work she loved--but one day, stuck on a city bus, she realized that time was flashing by, and she wasn’t thinking enough about the things that really mattered. “I should have a happiness project,” she decided. She spent the next year test-driving the wisdom of the ages, current scientific studies, and lessons from popular culture about how to be happier. Each month, she pursued a different set of resolutions: go to sleep earlier, quit nagging, forget about results, or take time to be silly. Bit by bit, she began to appreciate and amplify the happiness that already existed in her life. Written with humour and insight, Gretchen’s story will inspire you to start your own happiness project. Now in a beautiful, expanded edition, Gretchen offers a wealth of new material including happiness paradoxes and practical tips on many daily matters: being a more light-hearted parent, sticking to a fitness routine, getting your sweetheart to do chores without nagging, coping when you forget someone’s name and more.

The Happiness List

Author: Annie Lyons
Publisher: HarperCollins UK
ISBN: 0008221006
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 282

Book Description
‘A must-read of the summer!’ Jenny Oliver, bestselling author of The Summer House by the Sea 'Happy, hopeful and joyously life-affirming. Exactly the book we need right now.' Cathy Bramley Life is about to change forever...

How Did I Get Here?

Author: Barbara De Angelis
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 142990352X
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 376

Book Description
All of us find ourselves, at one time or another facing the unexpected and asking "How did I get here?" Whether because of disappointments in love, crises in health, family or finances, professional dissatisfaction, or events beyond your control, life doesn't look like you expected or intended it to. HOW DID I GET HERE? is a groundbreaking inspirational handbook for anyone of any age going through change, challenge or reevaluation in any aspect of their lives. It is about finding your way to renewed hope and happiness from wherever you are. Renowned transformational teacher Barbara De Angelis masterfully guides you through an understanding of your own life lessons, and teaches you how to successfully use whatever you're going through as a springboard for regeneration and rebirth. We live in turbulent times of profound change, and many of us find ourselves at emotional and spiritual crossroads. HOW DID I GET HERE? offers illuminating teachings and practical, innovative techniques that free you to move forward into a life of renewed optimism, true contentment and courageous awakening. With her remarkable blend of timeless wisdom, practical techniques and down-to-earth advice, Barbara De Angelis helps you to : *Recognize and understand the significant transitions, turning points, and wake-up calls on your path *Transform fear into courage, confusion and into vision, and self-doubt into confidence *Turn what appear to be dead ends into doorways *Reclaim your passion and purpose for living and loving *Discover freedom, fulfillment and authenticity from the inside out Written with Barbara De Angelis' trademark eloquence, honesty and compassion, and containing the treasures of her own thirty-five year quest for enlightenment, HOW DID I GET HERE is a more than uplifting, intimate and moving--it is a true transformational manual for achieving emotional and spiritual rebirth that will change your life.

Happier at Home

Author: Gretchen Rubin
Publisher: Doubleday Canada
ISBN: 0385670834
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 258

Book Description
Tolstoy wrote, "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." This is the statement that inspired bestselling author Gretchen Rubin to wonder whether she could foster an even greater happiness in her home. During The Happiness Project, the same questions kept tugging at her. How can I raise happy children? How can I maintain a tender, romantic relationship with my spouse--after fifteen years of marriage? How do I keep my Blackberry from taking over my private life? How can I foster a well-ordered, light-hearted atmosphere in my house, when no one else will lift a finger to cooperate? This book is Gretchen's account of her second journey in pursuit of happiness. Prescriptive, easy-to-follow, and anecdotal, Happier at Home offers readers a way of thinking and being that is positive and life-affirming. With specific examples following the calendar year, an intimate voice, and drawing from science and pop culture, this book will resonate with anyone looking to strengthen the bonds of family.

Only a Promise of Happiness

Author: Alexander Nehamas
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691148651
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 198

Book Description
Neither art nor philosophy was kind to beauty during the twentieth century. Much modern art disdains beauty, and many philosophers deeply suspect that beauty merely paints over or distracts us from horrors. Intellectuals consigned the passions of beauty to the margins, replacing them with the anemic and rarefied alternative, "aesthetic pleasure." In Only a Promise of Happiness, Alexander Nehamas reclaims beauty from its critics. He seeks to restore its place in art, to reestablish the connections among art, beauty, and desire, and to show that the values of art, independently of their moral worth, are equally crucial to the rest of life. Nehamas makes his case with characteristic grace, sensitivity, and philosophical depth, supporting his arguments with searching studies of art and literature, high and low, from Thomas Mann's Death in Venice and Manet's Olympia to television. Throughout, the discussion of artworks is generously illustrated. Beauty, Nehamas concludes, may depend on appearance, but this does not make it superficial. The perception of beauty manifests a hope that life would be better if the object of beauty were part of it. This hope can shape and direct our lives for better or worse. We may discover misery in pursuit of beauty, or find that beauty offers no more than a tantalizing promise of happiness. But if beauty is always dangerous, it is also a pressing human concern that we must seek to understand, and not suppress.

A Little Life

Author: Hanya Yanagihara
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0804172706
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 833

Book Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A stunning “portrait of the enduring grace of friendship” (NPR) about the families we are born into, and those that we make for ourselves. A masterful depiction of love in the twenty-first century. NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • MAN BOOKER PRIZE FINALIST • WINNER OF THE KIRKUS PRIZE A Little Life follows four college classmates—broke, adrift, and buoyed only by their friendship and ambition—as they move to New York in search of fame and fortune. While their relationships, which are tinged by addiction, success, and pride, deepen over the decades, the men are held together by their devotion to the brilliant, enigmatic Jude, a man scarred by an unspeakable childhood trauma. A hymn to brotherly bonds and a masterful depiction of love in the twenty-first century, Hanya Yanagihara’s stunning novel is about the families we are born into, and those that we make for ourselves. Look for Hanya Yanagihara’s latest bestselling novel, To Paradise.

Sign Here

Author: Claudia Lux
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 059354577X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 433

Book Description
A darkly humorous, surprisingly poignant, and utterly gripping debut novel about a guy who works in Hell (literally) and is on the cusp of a big promotion if only he can get one more member of the wealthy Harrison family to sell their soul. Peyote Trip has a pretty good gig in the deals department on the fifth floor of Hell. Sure, none of the pens work, the coffee machine has been out of order for a century, and the only drink on offer is Jägermeister, but Pey has a plan—and all he needs is one last member of the Harrison family to sell their soul. When the Harrisons retreat to the family lake house for the summer, with their daughter Mickey’s precocious new friend, Ruth, in tow, the opportunity Pey has waited a millennium for might finally be in his grasp. And with the help of his charismatic coworker Calamity, he sets a plan in motion. But things aren’t always as they seem, on Earth or in Hell. And as old secrets and new dangers scrape away at the Harrisons’ shiny surface, revealing the darkness beneath, everyone must face the consequences of their choices.