About this title: This smart and funny book by a prominent Harvard psychologist, which uses groundbreaking research and (often hilarious) anecdotes, reveals why people are so lousy at predicting what will make them happy--and what they can do about it.
Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: HarperPerennial
Date Published: 2007
ISBN-13:9780007183135ISBN:0007183135
Description: New. NEW-SHOP SOILED COPY-TRUSTED DEVON (UK) BASED SELLER-IN STOCK-SENT WITHIN 1 WORKING DAY-AVAILABLE BY EMAIL FOR QUERIES-NO QUIBBLE REFUND IF NOT COMPLETELY SATISFIED- read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: HarperPerennial
Date Published: 2007
ISBN-13:9780007183135ISBN:0007183135
Description: New. PAPERBACK BOOK-NEW-SHOP SOILED COPY-TRUSTED DEVON (UK) BASED SELLER-IN STOCK-SENT WITHIN 1 WORKING DAY-AVAILABLE BY EMAIL FOR QUERIES-NO QUIBBLE REFUND IF NOT COMPLETELY SATISFIED- read more
Description: Fine. Almost in new condition. Book shows only very slight signs of use. Cover and binding are undamaged and pages show minimal use. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
Description: Good. Only lightly used. Book has minimal wear to cover and binding. A few pages may have small creases and minimal underlining. Book selection as BIG as Texas. read more
Description: Good. Minimal damage to cover and binding. Pages show light use. With pride from Motor City. All books guaranteed. Best Service, Best Prices. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Vintage
Date Published: 2007
ISBN-13:9781400077427ISBN:1400077427
Description: Good. Used Condition-GOOD can be a well cared for Book that is in great condition to a Book that may show some signs of wear. GOOD Books sometimes are permanently marked; have some spine or page creases; exibit signs of aging or an ExLibrary copy. ** Sometimes grease pencil or permanent marking on cover. May contain limited notes and or highlighting. 100% Satisfaction guaranteed on all purchases. ** SHIPS FROM USA-Domestic Delivery takes 5-14 days ** read more
Description: Acceptable. Normal wear--cover corners bent, page edges slightly dirty, some page corners bent, writing inside front cover 100% Money Back Guarantee. read more
"I actually read this twice, but the first time was in the year after Katrina, when I was in a strange space where everything felt surreal and dreamlike and nothing really registered in my mind unless it had to do with insurance, finding a job, securing a permanent address, or other post-K worries. I seemed to remember liking this ok, so held onto it and just read it again.
And yeah, I liked it ok. His writing style is far too jocular and "hey, I'm a cool professor and I want everyone to like me" for my taste; I felt his conversational asides were incredibly distracting from the meat of the book, and it could easily have been 1/3rd shorter if he'd been more to the point. But, his writing style is likely the reason the book became so popular in the first place, and I'm just a curmudgeon.
Worth reading for all the interesting experiments it details, though if you don't want to spend the money like I did on a new hardcover (a rare purchase for me), just read the last chapter and the Afterword, and you'll get the gist of the whole book."
"I thought I might enjoy this book or, better, learn something from it. But I stumbled through the reading of it several times until, for perhaps the sixth time, an unknown someone recalled the copy I had borrowed from the library. So today I made it to the end and I'm happy that I did, though your guess is as good as mine whether I'm as happy as I expected to be when I first picked up the volume. Gilbert writes intelligently and with humor about emotions synthesizing his own emotions along with his professional work and great deal of other current work in psychology to provide a window on happiness. In his rendition, creatures such as us with brains of the sort we have inhabit worlds of our own making and sharing. Making occurs through memory, perception, and imagination. Sharing occurs primarily through language and the arts and sciences that depend upon it. Happiness is over-hyped, ever elusive. But there is a bit of something about it in the reading - and, no doubt, the writing - of this book."
"Interesting book. No it's not a self-help, although there's nothing wrong with self-help books... Anyway, this is the science of why we can't find happiness as our present self for our future selves b/c we are unable to predict what our future selves will like. Say we pack a lunch and we think it's fabulous and then we open it and look at it (and it's not squashed or whatever) and we just aren't as excited... Or say we imagine what our future world's will look like-- funny they look a lot like the present with a twist b.c we can't escape our present selves to image that world. And much more. Pretty scientific at parts, I was sloughing, but at the same time interesting and thought provoking. I'm not finished really but I will be by tonight, I've got a book club discussion for it, and I can't wait to hear what others thought about it! It got only 4 stars for being a little boring in parts. He tries hard, the examples he uses to talk about things are very amusing but sometimes yes, I've used it to help me fall asleep."
"If you are technical or scientific then "Stumbling on Happiness" may be a good read for you. For me, Daniel Gilbert's conclusions were fascinating but most may be garnered by reading his articles or the last chapter of his book. As Gilbert admits in his foreword, his book is not about happiness so much as it is about the way that our minds work in an attempt to find happiness.
Particulary interesting to me were his findings on children and happiness. "Every human culture tells its members that having children will make them happy." However, studies on marital satisfaction show that couples are happiest when they are married without children and when they are empty nesters. Couples are least happy when their children are teenagers, pre-school age, and newborns. Studies on women, in particular, showed that they were "less happy when taking care of their children than when eating, exercising, shopping, napping, or watching television," with looking over children being "only more slightly pleasant than doing housework.""
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