Happiness interview: Jennifer E. Smith.

My friend and fellow passionate biobliophile is the terrific writer, Jenny Smith. I got to know Jenny through one of my children’s literature reading groups, and she has written several excellent young-adult novels herself, including one that just hit the shelves: This Is What Happy Looks Like.

What a title! Catnip to me. I love Jenny’s titles. Her last book was The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight, one of my favorite titles ever.

This Is What Happy Looks Like is the story of a teen star and a small-town girl who strike up an email correspondence, without knowing each other’s identities, and what happens next. A delightful novel.

Jenny’s publisher has offered five signed give-away copies of This Is What Happy Looks Like. Interested? Live in the U.S. or Canada? Enter your info here by Friday, April 5, 2013, by 5:00 EST. Five names chosen at random.

Because Jenny’s novels explore very deeply the subject of happiness — among other ideas — I wanted to hear what she had to say on the subject.

What’s a simple activity that consistently makes you happier?

There’s nothing like taking a walk to clear my head and boost my spirits.  I’m lucky enough to live right across the street from a beautiful park, and I’ve logged a whole lot of hours there in all sorts of weather.  There’s just something about the fresh air and trees and grass that’s good for the soul, and I think you appreciate it even more when you live in a city.  No matter what, I always feel better after making some time to go for a wander…

What’s something you know now about happiness that you didn’t know when you were 18 years old?

A lot of the time, it involves staying in rather than going out.

Is there anything you find yourself doing repeatedly that gets in the way of your happiness?

I think spending too much time on Facebook can often have a negative impact.  It doesn’t matter how happy you are; being faced with hundreds of photos showcasing the very best of other people’s lives can sometimes be enough to make you doubt your own in a way that I don’t think is very productive.  I always try to remind myself to keep my eyes on my own paper!

If you’re feeling blue, how do you give yourself a happiness boost? Or, like a “comfort food,” do you have a comfort activity? (mine is reading children’s books).

I have a lot of them, actually.  Music is always a great pick-me-up, and I have a playlist called “Happy Mix” that’s filled with songs that are guaranteed to put me in a better mood.  Then there are a few of my favorite poems that I trot from time to time, and a lot of silly jokes too.  I also like to juggle, and let me tell you this: it’s impossible to feel heavy-hearted when juggling.  Another surefire trick for me is Harry Potter: I love to grab one of the books and open to a random page, just to fall into that world for a little while.  But the best cure of all is definitely my dog.  He’s a goofy little beagle with an unfailing ability to brighten my day.

Is there some aspect of your home that makes you particularly happy?

My books.  If I could live in a house made entirely of bookshelves, I would do it.  My dream is to have one of those floor-to-ceiling libraries one day, with the ladders that move around the room.  But for now, I’m about as surrounded by books as is possible in my apartment, and it makes me ridiculously happy.

Every Wednesday is Tip Day, or Quiz Day, or List Day.

These days, I’ve been thinking and writing a lot about my Four Categories related to rule-following (I still need a clever name for the set). For me, this scheme–of Upholders, Questioners, Rebels, and Obligers–sheds a real light on certain aspects of human nature and behavior.

I’m very curious to know the relative size of the four different categories, so I’m posting this poll. The results won’t be scientifically valid, but still, it will be interesting to see how the numbers fall.

If you don’t know your category, read the descriptions here and here. I myself an Upholder.

Based on your own experience, what categories do you expect to be largest and smallest? Or do you expect the four categories to be roughly equally well-represented? I have my own view—but won’t reveal it yet.

March 27 marked my in-laws’ fiftieth wedding anniversary, and my parents’ fifty-second anniversary, so it was only a few days ago that I realized March 27 (auspiciously) marked an important anniversary for me, as well: the seventh anniversary of my first post on this blog.

Here’s a link to that very first entry: The blog begins. I wish I could see it the way it was formatted back then.  (I just tried, using the Wayback Machine, but didn’t manage to get it.)

When I started this blog, I had no expectations for it; I started it as a way to test the happiness finding that novelty and challenge bring happiness. What could I do that was novel and challenging? My agent had told me she thought I’d enjoy having a blog, so I decided to try that.  I was very nervous about putting something out there–and comforted myself with the thought that it didn’t matter what it looked  like, because no one would ever read it!

It’s unnerving to reflect on how flippantly I undertook this project. I might well have tried something else novel and challenging, like learning PhotoShop. It’s unnerving, because now this blog is one of the major engines of happiness in my life. It’s a daily creation that’s wholly under my control; it allows me to think more deeply, because I can think only through writing; it has given me an entirely new identity, field of knowledge, and circle of friends.

Best of all, it’s a way to engage with others on fascinating issues — and your comments here have done so much to deepen my understand of my subject. Thank you, readers. I so appreciate your enthusiasm, your support, and your insightful conversation.

Because nothing boosts happiness more than a great book, each month, I suggest:

• One outstanding book about happiness.
• One outstanding work of children’s or young-adult literature. I have a crazy passion for kidlit.
• One eccentric pick. This is a book that I love, but freely admit may not be for everyone.

I’ll post these recommendations here, or to make sure you don’t miss them, sign up for the monthly Book Club newsletter.

Shop at the wonderful Brooklyn indie WORD, BN.com, Amazon (I’m an affiliate of all three), or your favorite local bookstore. Or visit the library! Drumroll…

An outstanding book about happiness:  E. O. Wilson, Naturalist. Buy from WORD; BN.com; Amazon.

An outstanding children’s book: Rumer Godden, The Greengage Summer. Buy from WORD; BN.com; Amazon.

An eccentric pick: Flannery O’Connor, Wise Blood.  Buy from WORD; BN.com;  Amazon.

I’ve noticed that many times, when someone describes a book to me, I want to read it less. And often, weirdly, the better a book is, the worse it sounds. So I won’t describe these books, but I love all the books I recommend; I’ve read them at least twice if not many times; and they’re widely loved.

If you read last month’s recommendations…what did you think? Gosse’s Father and Son, MacDonald’s Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle, and Tufte’s The Visual Display of Quantitative Information. Such good books!

This week marked a gigantic milestone in my extended family. Both my parents, and my husband’s parents, have now been married for fifty years. And my parents have been married for fifty-two years.

Oddly, our two sets of parents have the same anniversary: March 27. That seemed very auspicious to me when I was dating my now-husband. It was a sign! After all, March 27 is a fairly idiosyncratic wedding date. It’s not like June 20.

When I was little, I remember hearing about golden wedding anniversaries and assuming that they were extraordinarily rare. Who could possibly be married for fifty years?

Two very happy  occasions.