The Happiness Project: Coming Soon to a City Near You! Maybe.

The Happiness Project

My book, THE HAPPINESS PROJECT, is a memoir of the year I spent test-driving the wisdom of the ages, the current scientific studies, and the lessons from popular culture about how to be happy--from Aristotle to Martin Seligman to Thoreau to Oprah. THE HAPPINESS PROJECT hit the shelves in December 2009 (Harper) and, happily, was a #1 New York Times bestseller. As one of the hundreds of happiness experiments I conducted during the research and writing of the book, I started this blog. Here, I recount my daily adventures in pursuit of happiness.

What Started Me Thinking

"Whoever is happy will make others happy, too." Mark Twain.
“There is no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy.” Robert Louis Stevenson
"Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things: But one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her." Luke 10:41-42
“Imaginary evil is romantic and varied; real evil is gloomy, monotonous, barren, boring. Imaginary good is boring; real good is always new, marvelous, intoxicating.” Simone Weil
“What a wonderful life I’ve had! I only wish I’d realized it sooner.” Colette
“It is easy to be heavy: hard to be light.” G. K. Chesterton
“A man’s first care should be to avoid the reproaches of his own heart.” Joseph Addison
“Best is good. Better is best.” Lisa Grunwald
“Order is Heaven’s first law.” Alexander Pope

Happiness Theories I Reject

Flaubert: "To be stupid, and selfish, and to have good health are the three requirements for happiness; though if stupidity is lacking, the others are useless."
Vauvenargues: “There are men who are happy without knowing it.”
Eric Hoffer: “The search for happiness is one of the chief sources of unhappiness.”
Sartre: "Hell is other people."
Willa Cather: “One cannot divine nor forecast the conditions that will make happiness; one only stumbles upon them…”
Alexander Smith: “We are never happy; we can only remember that we were so once.”
John Stuart Mill: “Ask yourself whether you are happy, and you cease to be so.”

My book, The Happiness Project, comes out in less than a month, and my book tour schedule is final! At last.

Several weeks ago, when I posted a question about my possible book tour, many readers wrote to me to encourage me to come to their home towns – I appreciate that so much. Now, at last, here’s the final schedule. I hope that I get to meet many of you along the way.

New York City – January 7, 2010 [I live in New York City]
Barnes & Noble
86th and Lexington
7:00 pm

Boston – January 13, 2010
Brookline Booksmith
279 Harvard St
Brookline, MA
7:00 pm

Washington, DC – January 18, 2010
Borders
5333 Wisconsin Ave. NW
Washington, DC
7:00 pm

Chicago – January 19, 2010
Bookstall
811 Elm St.
Winnetka, IL
7:00 pm

Kansas City – January 20, 2010 [I grew up in K.C., and my parents still live there]
Kansas City Public Library/Rainy Day Books
Plaza Branch
4801 Main Street
Kansas City, MO
6:00 pm

Denver – January 21, 2010
Tattered Cover Book Store
9315 Dorchester ST
Highlands Ranch, CO
7:30 pm

Los Angeles – January 25, 2010 [my sister lives in L.A.]
Vroman’s Bookstore
695 E. Colorado Blvd.
Pasadena, CA
7:00 pm

San Francisco – January 26, 2010
Books Inc
1760 4th St
Berkeley, CA
7:00 pm

Seattle – January 27, 2010 [especially interested in going to Seattle, because it’s the only city on the list that I’ve never visited before]
Kim Ricketts Books
2030 5th Ave.
Palace Ballroom
Seattle, WA
7:00 pm – “Good Life” Series

New York City -- February 9, 2010
92nd Street Y
1395 Lexington Avenue
New York, NY
7:30 pm
Buy tickets here

If you live in one of the cities, please come! Bring your friends! Spread the word! I really hope I'll get the chance to meet blog readers face to face as part of the book promotion.

* Who knew? Over at the great blog, Marginal Revolution, I see that for Germans, at least, Sunday is the least happy day of the week. * Zoikes, as of today, the publication date of The Happiness Project is just one month away. So close, and yet so far. Pre-order your copy now! If you need some convincing, look here.