The Secret Of Happiness
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The Secrets of Happiness
Unhappy is the story of happiness. More than two thousand years ago, when the ancient Greeks first pondered what constitutes "the good life," happiness was considered a civic virtue that demanded a lifetime's cultivation. Not just mere enjoyment of pleasure and mere avoidance of suffering, true happiness was an achievement, not a birthright. Now, in an age of instant gratification and infinite distraction, history professor Richard Schoch takes a refreshingly contemplative look at a question that's as vital today as ever: What does it mean to be happy? Schoch consults some of history's greatest thinkers -- from Aristotle to Thomas Aquinas to Buddha -- in his quest to understand happiness in all its hard-won forms. Packed with three thousand years' worth of insights, many long forgotten, The Secrets of Happiness is a breath of ancient wisdom for anyone who yearns for the good life.
Secrets of Happiness
A WASHINGTON POST BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR When a man discovers his father in New York has long had another, secret, family—a wife and two kids—the interlocking fates of both families lead to surprise loyalties, love triangles, and a reservoir of inner strength in this "expansive and elegantly crafted novel" (Fresh Air, NPR). "Rich with the complexities of life . . . the stories create a world made fully dimensional through changes of perspective—major characters appear and reappear as part of one or another’s experience and testimony . . . Pull any life’s thread and you discover a mesh of involvement that soon takes in all the others. It is a fine thing, subtly done, and truly exhilarating." —The Wall Street Journal Ethan, a young lawyer in New York, learns that his father has long kept a second family—a Thai wife and two kids living in Queens. In the aftermath of this revelation, Ethan's mother spends a year working abroad, returning much changed, as events introduce her to the other wife. Across town, Ethan's half brothers are caught in their own complicated journeys: one brother's penchant for minor delinquency has escalated, and the other must travel to Bangkok to bail him out, while the bargains their mother has struck about love and money continue to shape their lives. As Ethan finds himself caught in a love triangle of his own, the interwoven fates of these two households elegantly unfurl to encompass a woman rallying to help an ill brother with an unreliable lover and a filmmaker with a girlhood spent in Nepal. Evoking a generous and humane spirit, and a story that ranges over three continents, Secrets of Happiness elucidates the ways people marshal the resources at hand to forge their own forms of joy.
The Secrets of Happiness
The Secrets of Happiness is an extraordinary tale of sisterhood, from Lucy Diamond author of The Beach Cafe. The best things in life . . . can be just around the corner Rachel and Becca aren't real sisters, or so they say. They are stepsisters, living far apart, with little in common. Rachel is the successful one: happily married with three children and a big house, plus an impressive career. Artistic Becca, meanwhile, lurches from one dead-end job to another, shares a titchy flat, and has given up on love. The two of them have lost touch, but when Rachel doesn't come home one night, Becca is called in to help. Once there, she quickly realizes that her stepsister's life is not so perfect after all: Rachel's handsome husband has moved out, her children are rebelling, and her glamorous career has taken a nosedive. Worst of all, nobody seems to have a clue where she might be. As Becca begins to untangle Rachel's secrets, she is forced to confront some uncomfortable truths about her own life, and the future seems uncertain. But sometimes happiness can be found in the most unexpected places . . .