Customer Reviews

Happiness: The Nature and Nurture of Joy and Contentment

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I really wanted to like this book. Its author is cheerful and well informed, and the subject is an important one. However, while the book has a promising beginning, it falls apart quickly - droning on like a university term paper in an alphabet soup about MZ, MZT, MZA, MPQ, LZT, MISTRA etc. (none of these acronyms are in the index)
Then full chapters are dedicated to bragging about his wonderful, well adjusted sons who received full scholarships to important universities and how wonderful various other members of his family are. He sounds happy - but I was much more interested in finding out how I could be more happy in my own life and helping others acheive the same. On this effort, he offers very little advice, ranging from a beer bread recipe to rambling on about making sure people are licensed before they can have children. This book would make an interesting, short pamphlet - but as a book it is deeply flawed.

David Lykken is a superbly intellectual psychologist and I was hoping this book would reflect the power of that intellect, but this book ultimately collapses into some home spun family tales and "common sense" notions of happiness that may just be wrong. A real disappointment