Jewels buried in a grave, cigarettes smoked in $100 bills, champagne poured into a bathtub--these perverse, irrational acts are also somehow thrilling. Profane Waste explores the workings of an unacknowledged taboo: the taboo against willful dissipation. Dana Hoey, an acclaimed photographer appearing here in her first book, presents a series of 30 haunting images that are at once ultra-real and uncanny. Bestselling biographer and social critic Gretchen Rubin uses lucid analysis and explosive examples--the actions of Rauschenberg, Jesus, Ivan Boesky, Thoreau and Goebbels, among others--to demonstrate the power of the title concept. Together, Hoey's photographs and Rubin's provocative arguments create a shock of recognition: they lay bare intentions that stand outside the conventional goals of acquisition and accumulation.
I'm the author of "Happier at Home" and "The Happiness Project," about my experiences as I test-drove the wisdom of the ages, current scientific studies, and lessons from popular culture about how to be happy, to see what really worked. Happily, both books became New York Times bestsellers.
On my blog, www.happiness-project.com, I write about my daily adventures in happiness.
My previous books include a bestselling biography of Winston Churchill, "Forty Ways to Look at Winston Churchill," and one of John Kennedy, "Forty Ways to Look at JFK." My first book, "Power Money Fame S..: A User's Guide," is social criticism in the guise of a user's manual. "Profane Waste" was a collaboration with artist Dana Hoey. I've also written three dreadful novels that are safely locked away in a drawer.
Before turning to writing, I had a career in law. A graduate of Yale and Yale Law School, I clerked for Justice Sandra Day O'Connor and was editor-in-chief of the Yale Law Journal. I live in New York City with my husband and two daughters.
