Adventures in Reading

I’ve read several positive psychology and other books related to the science and economics of happiness:

• Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert
• Authentic Happiness: Using the New Positive Psychology to Realize Your Potential for Lasting Fulfillment by Martin E. P. Seligman
• The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom by Jonathan Haidt

Continuing my study of this topic, I’ve been reading Sonja Lyubomirsky’s The How of Happiness: A Scientific Approach to Getting the Life You Want. And then I’ll still have three other books on this subject to read:

• The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less by Barry Schwartz
• Happiness: Lessons from a New Science by Richard Layard
• The Joy of Living: Unlocking the Secret and Science of Happiness by Yongey Rinpoche Mingyur

(I may read The Paradox of Choice in May 2008 and put off reading the other two for a few months.)

Lyubomirsky is a professor of Psychology at the University of California, Riverside and has been working on groundbreaking scientific research in the study of happiness.

As evident on the cover, Lyubomirsky’s research shows that 40% of happiness is within our control. Of the remaining 60%, 50% is determined by “set points” (genetics) and 10% by circumstances.

Further, this book also discusses concepts of positive psychology learned in other books, such as :

• External circumstances (wealth, beauty, etc) does not create to lasting happiness.
• The secret of happiness is that it lies within ourselves.
• Happiness can boost energy, creativity, the immune system, productivity, and longevity.
• Happy people tend to be committed to lifelong goals and ambitions, have enduring and deep social networks, live in the present moment, are comfortable expressing gratitude, are likely to be spiritual or religious.
• Even happy people face stress, crises and even tragedies.

Out of the books I’ve read related to positive psychology and the study of happiness, The How of Happiness is the most comprehensive guide to happiness. I’m sure you’ll agree after reading just the Table of Contents:

Foreward 1

Part One: How to Attain Real and Lasting Happiness

1. Is It Possible to Become Happier? 13
A Program for Lasting Happiness 14
Do You Know What Makes You Happy? 16
Discovering the Real Keys to Happiness 19
The Most Rewarding “Work” You’ll Ever Do 24
Why Be Happy? 24

2. How Happy Are You and Why? 27
Where Do You Fit In? 30
Happiness Myths 38
The Limits of Life Circumstances 41
The Happiness Set Point 52
The Promise of Intentional Activity 63
Conclusion 67

3. How to Find Happiness Activities That Fit Your Interests, Your Values, and Your Needs 69
Three Ways That Strategies Can Fit 70
Corniness, Again 72
Person-Activity Fit Diagnostic 73
P.S. More Options 78
Final Words 79

Part Two: Happiness Activities

Foreword to Part Two: Before You Begin 83

4. Practicing Gratitude and Positive Thinking 88
Happiness Activity No. 1: Expressing Gratitude 89
Happiness Activity No. 2: Cultivating Optimism 101
Happiness Activity No. 3: Avoiding Overthinking and Social Comparison 112

5. Investing in Social Connections 125
Happiness Activity No. 4: Practicing Acts of Kindness 125
Happiness Activity No. 5: Nurturing Social Relationships 138

6. Managing Stress, Hardship, and Trauma 150
Happiness Activity No. 6: Developing Strategies for Coping 151
Happiness Activity No. 7: Learning to Forgive 169

7. Living in the Present 180
Happiness Activity No. 8: Increasing Flow Experiences 181
Happiness Activity No. 9: Savoring Life’s Joys 190
Final Words 204

8. Happiness Activity No.10: Committing to Your Goals 205
Six Benefits of Committed Goal Pursuit 206
What Kind of Goals Should You Pursue? 208
Recommendations for Committed Goal Pursuit 214

9. Taking Care of Your Body and Your Soul 227
Happiness Activity No. 11: Practicing Religion and Spirituality 228
Happiness Activity No. 12: Taking Care of Your Body (Meditation) 240
Happiness Activity No. 12: Taking Care of Your Body (Physical Activity) 244
Happiness Activity No. 12: Taking Care of Your Body (Acting Like a Happy Person) 250

Part Three: Secrets to Abiding Happiness

10. The Five Hows Behind Sustainable Happiness 257
The First How: Positive Emotion 258
The Second How: Optimal Timing and Variety 266
The Third How: Social Support 270
The Fourth How: Motivation, Effort, and Commitment 273
The Fifth How: Habit 277
Conclusion 280

The Promise of Abiding Happiness: An Afterword 282

Postscript: If You Are Depressed 285
What Is Depression? 285
The Causes of Depression 289
The Most Effective Treatments for Depression 293
The Cure for Unhappiness Is Happiness 302
Surmounting Setbacks 304

Appendix: Additional Happiness Activities That May Fit 305
Acknowledgments 309
Notes 3113
Index 359

Click here to read an excerpt of The How of Happiness from the author’s website. Lyubomirsky’s website also includes a sample syllabus for those interested in learning more about positive psychology and a reading group guide to aid discussion of her book; I think I’ll save a copy of that on my hard drive just in case I want to learn even more about this topic.

It seems like way too many books have recently been published about happiness; not just the ones I’ve read but also:

• Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness by Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein (2008)
• The Geography of Bliss: One Grump’s Search for the Happiest Places in the World by Eric Weiner (2008)
• Happier: Learn the Secrets to Daily Joy and Lasting Fulfillment by Tal Ben-Shahar (2007)
• Thanks!: How the New Science of Gratitude Can Make You Happier by Robert Emmons (2007)
• The Science of Happiness: How Our Brains Make Us Happy-and What We Can Do to Get Happier by Stefan Klein (2006)
• What Happy Companies Know: How the New Science of Happiness Can Change Your Company for the Better by Dan Baker, Cathy Greenberg and Collins Hemingway (2006)
• Happiness: The Science behind Your Smile by Daniel Nettle (2005)
• What Happy People Know: How the New Science of Happiness Can Change Your Life for the Better by Dan Baker and Cameron Stauth (2004)
• The Science of Happiness: Unlocking the Mysteries of Mood by Stephen R. Braun (2001)
• The Art of Happiness: A Handbook for Living by Dalai Lama (1998)
• The Pursuit of Happiness: Who is Happy and Why by David G. Myers (1993)
• Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1991)

I am hopeful that the findings of positive psychology will endure, though I wonder if all the buzz about happiness is really just hype.

I took a break this morning to read NYTimes.com and just heard about yet another book that I simply must read:

Renewing America’s Food Traditions: Saving and Savoring the Continent’s Most Endangered Foods by Gary Paul Nabhan

The April 30, 2008 NYTimes article featuring this book is “To Save a Species, Serve It for Dinner” by Kim Severson.

Over the past four years, Gary Paul Nabhan has complied a list of 1,080+ endangered plants and animals that were once fairly commonplace in American kitchens but are now threatened, endangered or essentially extinct in the marketplace. To save them, he urges people to eat them and engages nursery owners, farmers, breeders and chefs to grow and use them.

The book tells the stories of 93 ingredients and recipes to cook them. The ingredients are organized into thirteen culinary regions (or “nations”) such as:

• Acorn Nation - the Pacific Coast from California to northern Mexico
• Chestnut Nation - northern Georgia through West Virginia
• Chili Pepper Nation - Southern Arizona & New Mexico into northern Mexico
• Clambake Nation - New England coast
• Crab Cake Nation - mid-Atlantic down to Florida coast
• Gumbo Nation - Gulf coast
• Moose Nation - most of Canada
• Salmon Nation - Pacific Northwest + Alaska
• Wild Rice Nation - Great Lakes region

Nabhan worked with seven culinary, environmental and conservation groups to help identify items for the list such as: Slow Food U.S.A., the Seed Savers Exchange, the Cultural Conservancy, and the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy.

In addition, Nabhan is also working with the Chefs Collaborative, a group of more than 1,000 professional cooks and others dedicated to sustainable cuisine.

Unbelievably, one in fifteen wild edible plants and animal species are at risk!

And in case you’re curious, here are some of the endangered animals and plants in the book:

• American Eels of Lake Ontario and St. Lawrence Rivers (Wild-Rice Nation)
• Arikara yellow bean (Bison Nation)
• Berry berry American cranberry (Clambake Nation)
• Black Sphinx date (Chili Pepper Nation)
• Boston marrow squash (Clambake Nation)
• Bronx seedless grape (Clambake Nation)
• Buckeye chicken (Maple Syrup Nation)
• Cayuga Duck (Maple Syrup Nation)
• Centennial pecan (Gumbo Nation)
• Chapalote popcorn (Chili Pepper Nation) - among America’s top 10 endangered foods
• Chicasaw plum (Corn Bread Nation)
• Choppee okra (Crab Cake Nation)
• Cotton Patch goose (Gumbo Nation)
• Death Valley devil claw (unicorn plant) (Pinon Nut Nation)
• Early Golden persimmon (Corn Bread Nation)
• Eulachon smelt (Salmon Nation) - among America’s top 10 endangered foods
• Fish pepper (Crab Cake Nation)
• Gaspe flint corn (Clambake Nation)
• Gilette Fig (Salmon Nation)
• Goliath grouper (Gumbo Nation)
• Guinea Hog (Chestnut Nation)
• Gulf Coast native sheep (Gumbo Nation) - among America’s top 10 endangered foods
• Hand-harvested wild rice (Manoomin) (Wild Rice Nation)
• Hidatsa sunflower (Bison Nation) - among America’s top 10 endangered foods
• Jack’s copperclad Jerusalem artichokes (Chestnut Nation)
• Java chicken (Maple Syrup Nation) - among America’s top 10 endangered foods
• Makah Ozette Potato (Salmon Nation)
• Meech Prolific quince (Clambake Nation)
• Milking Devon cattle (Clambake Nation)
• Nevada single-leaf pinon nut (Pinon Nut Nation)
• Northern Giant (McFayden) cabbage (Moose Nation)
• Ny’pa, Palmer’s salt grass (Chili Pepper Nation)
• Oldmixon free (clearstone) peach (Maple Syrup Nation)
• Osage red flint corn (Bison Nation)
• Ossabaw Island Hog (Crab Cake Nation)
• Paiute (speckled) tepary bean (Pinon Nut Nation)
• Pineywoods cattle (Gumbo Nation) - among America’s top 10 endangered foods
• Rubel northern highbush blueberry (Clambake Nation)
• Quahogs of Great South Bay (Clambake Nation)
• Santo Domingo casaba melon (Chili Pepper Nation)
• Sassafrass Leaves (Gumbo Nation)
• Seminole pumpkin (Gumbo Nation) - among America’s top 10 endangered foods
• Short and Thick parsnip (Moose Nation)
• Sierra Beauty apples (Acorn Nation)
• Silver Fox rabbit (Bison Nation)
• Sonoran white pomegranate (Chili Pepper Nation)
• Sonoran pronghorn antelope (Chili Pepper Nation)
• Tennessee Fainting Goat (Corn Bread Nation)
• White abalone (Acorn Nation) - among America’s top 10 endangered foods
• White maypop passion fruit (Crab Cake Nation)
• Wild tomatillo of the Continental Divide (Chili Pepper Nation)
• Zimmerman pawpaw (Crab Cake Nation)

And one last thing, not everything in this book is to be eaten. Some wild-animals (like the Carolina flying squirrel) are too rare and endangered to be eaten these days, even if they were once widely eaten.

Interestingly, Renewing America’s Food Traditions goes along with the other books I’m reading for Baltimore Green Week; all books about living a more sustainable lifestyle, particularly in terms of what we eat.

I love food and trying new foods so I will certainly do my part in helping to preserve these animals and plants by ordering them at restaurants when available. Unfortunately, Baltimore isn’t exactly a sophisticated culinary town…

Click here to view several PDF samples and click here to view the Table of Contents, both from the publisher’s website.

I own a lot of books. Probably somewhere around 400 or more books. And like so many other bibliophiles, I buy books at a much faster rate than I read them.

And since I love being organized, I’m compelled to keep a list of books I have not read. So I have just published such a list (I’ve kept a private list for years).

I’ll keep that static page updated but here’s what’s on it as of today:

Fiction

• The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide by Douglas Adams
• In the Name of Salome by Julia Alvarez
• Surfacing by Margaret Atwood
• The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood
• Go Tell it On the Mountain by James Baldwin
• Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks
• The Plague by Albert Camus
• O Pioneers! by Willa Sibert Cather
• The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
• The Memory Keeper’s Daughter by Kim Edwards
• Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
• Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald
• Buying a Fishing Rod for my Grandfather & Stories by Gao Xingjian
• A Dictionary of Maqiao by Han Shaogong
• The Scarlett Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
• Turn of the Screw by Henry James
• Prodigal Summer: A Novel by Barbara Kingsolver
• The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis
• Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life by Herman Melville
• Oxygen by Andrew Miller
• The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
• Straight Man by Richard Russo
• A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
• East of Eden by John Steinbeck
• Uncle Tom’s Cabin Or, Life Among the Lowly by Harriet Beecher Stowe
• Monkey: Folk Novel of China by Wu Che’ng en

Non-Fiction

• The Path of the Dream Healer by Adam
• Growing Great Employees: Turning Ordinary People into Extraordinary Performers by Erika Andersen
• Roone: A Memoir by Roone Arledge
• Mind Over Matter: Why Intellectual Capital is the Chief Source of Wealth by Ronald J. Baker
• Travellers’ Wildlife Guides Hawaii by Leo Beletsky
• Our Bodies, Ourselves: A New Edition for a New Era by the Boston Women’s Health Book Collective
• Running with Scissors: A Memoir by Augusten Burroughs
• How to Stop Worrying and Start Living by Dale Carnegie
• Know-How: The 8 Skills That Separate People Who Perform from Those Who Don’t by Ram Charan
• Becoming Japanese: Colonial Taiwan & the Politics of Identity Formation by Leo T. S. Ching
• Accelerate: 20 Practical Lessons to Boost Business Momentum by Dan Coughlin
• The Compassionate Life by His Holiness the Dalai Lama / Tenzin Gyatso
• The Obvious: All You Need to Know in Business. Period by James Dale
• Infections and Inequalities: The Modern Plagues by Paul Farmer
• Duel: Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr, and the Future of America by Thomas J. Fleming
• The Lucky Shopping Manual: Building and Improving Your Wardrobe Piece by Piece by Kim France and Andrea Linett
• The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan
• True North: Discover Your Authentic Leadership (J-B Warren Bennis Series) by Bill George
• Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia by Elizabeth Gilbert
• The Votes that Counted: how the Court Decided the 2000 Presidential Election by Howard Gillman
• Personal History by Katharine Graham
• Life with Two Languages: an Introduction to Bilingualism by François Grosjean
• Cell-Level Healing: The Bridge from Soul to Cell by Joyce Whiteley Hawkes
• Manufacturing Consent: the Political Economy of Mass Media by Edward S. Herman & Noam Chomsky
• The Histories (Penguin Classics) by Herodotus
• Ask and It Is Given: Learning to Manifest Your Desires by Esther Hicks, Jerry Hicks and Wayne Dyer
• Leviathan: Authoritative Text : Backgrounds Interpretations (Norton Critical Editions) by Thomas Hobbes
• Sisters and Strangers: Women in the Shanghai Cotton Mills, 1919-1949 by Emily Hoing
• Ka Lei Ha’Aheo: Beginning Hawaiian by Alberta Pualani Hopkins
• Ka Lei Ha’Aheo: Teachers Guide and Answer Key by Alberta Pualani Hopkins
• The End of Science: Facing the Limits of Knowledge in the Twilight of the Scientific Age by John Horgan
• The Spiral Road: Change in a Chinese Village Through the Eyes of a Communist Party Leader by Huang Shu-Min
• Family: The Compact Among Generations by James E. Hughes Jr.
• A People’s History of the Supreme Court by Peter Irons
• Exceeding Customer Expectations: What Enterprise, America’s #1 Car Rental Company, Can Teach You About Creating Lifetime Customers by Kirk Kazanjian
• What iI? The World’s Foremost Military Historians Imagine What Might Have Been by Robert Cowley (editor)
• Faithful: Two Diehard Boston Red Sox Fans Chronicle the Historic 2004 Season by Stephen King and Stewart O’Nan
• The Dream Manager by Matthew Kelly
• Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: a Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver
• The Science of Success: How Market-Based Management Built the World’s Largest Private Company by Charles G. Koch
• Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer
• Readings in Managerial Psychology by Harold J. Leavitt, Louis R. Pondy and David M. Boje
• The Future of Ideas: the Fate of the Commons in a Connected World by Lawrence Lessig
• The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe by Brian Levack
• Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game by Michael Lewis
• Hawaii’s Story by Hawaii’s Queen by Liliuokalani
• Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong by James W. Loewen
• The Best American Spiritual Writing 2005 by Barry Lopez (Introduction) and Philip Zaleski (Series Editor)
• High Tide: The Truth About Our Climate Crisis by Mark Lynas
• Notes of Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787 by James Madison / United States Constitutional Convention
• Strategy and the Fat Smoker: Doing What’s Obvious But Not Easy by David H Maister
• Full of Bull: Do What Wall Street Does, Not What It Says, To Make Money in the Market by Stephen T. McClellan
• Franklin and Winston: An Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendship by Jon Meacham
• Why Beautiful People Have More Daughters: From Dating, Shopping, and Praying to Going to War and Becoming a Billionaire– Two Evolutionary Psychologists Explain Why We Do What We Do by Alan S. Miller & Satoshi Kanazawa
• Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi
• The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream by Barack Obama
• Common Sense by Thomas Paine
• The Pleasure Prescription by Paul Pearsall
• Writing Your Own Pleasure Prescription by Paul Pearsall
• Rebels and Revolutionaries in North China 1845-1945 by Elizabeth J. Perry
• The Templar Revelation by Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince
• The Language Instinct by Steven Pinker
• William Randolph Hearst: The Later Years, 1911-1951 by Ben Procter
• The Joy of Living: Unlocking the Secret and Science of Happiness by Yongey Rinpoche Mingyur
• The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying by Sogyal Rinpoche
• Environmental Politics and Policy by Walter A. Rosenbaum
• Basic Political Writings by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• Selling Sucks: How to Stop Selling and Start Getting Prospects to Buy! by Frank J. Rumbauskas Jr.
• Being Good: Women’s Moral Values in Early America by Martha Saxton
• Naked by David Sedaris
• Exposed: The Toxic Chemistry of Everyday Products and What’s at Stake for American Power by Mark Schapiro
• The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of the Learning Organization by Peter M. Senge
• West of Then by Tara Bray Smith
• Red Star Over China: the Classic Account of the Birth of Chinese Communism by Edgar Snow
• Wanderlust: a History of Walking by Rebecca Solnit
• The Rhetoric of Empire: Colonial Discourse in Journalism, Travel Writing, and Imperial Administration by David Spurr
• Engaged Leadership: Building a Culture to Overcome Employee Disengagement by Clint Swindall
• Legal Negotiation in a Nutshell (Nutshell Series) by Larry L. Teply
• God In All Worlds: An Anthology of Contemporary Spiritual Writing by Lucinda Vardey
• Vatsyayana Kamasutra by Mallanaga Vatsyayana
• The Fall of Imperial China by Frederic Wakeman Jr.
• The Idea Factory: Learning to Think at MIT by Pepper White
• The Moral Animal: Why We Are, the Way We Are: The New Science of Evolutionary Psychology by Robert Wright
• Get Ahead by Going Abroad: A Woman’s Guide to Fast-track Career Success by C. Perry Yeatman & Stacie Nevadomski Berdan
• To the Storm: the Odyssey of a Revolutionary Chinese Woman by Daiyun Yue and Carolyn Wakeman

As for other lists I keep, you can always click the Currently Reading tab to see what I’m reading right now, the Books I’ve Read tab to read what I have read, or the Favorite Books tab to read what books I adore!

If you feel strongly about any of the books I own but have not read, let me know! I’d love to hear which of those books whether I absolutely must read now or shouldn’t bother with.