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Happy
Happy
Oct 11, 2024 6:19 PM

Author:Derren Brown,Derren Brown

Happy

Brought to you by Penguin.

The audiobook edition of Happy, read by Derren Brown.

Everyone says they want to be happy. But that's much more easily said than done. What does being happy actually mean? And how do you even know when you feel it?

In Happy Derren Brown explores changing concepts of happiness - from the surprisingly modern wisdom of the Stoics and Epicureans in classical times right up until today, when the self-help industry has attempted to claim happiness as its own. He shows how many of self-help's suggested routes to happiness and success - such as positive thinking, self-belief and setting goals - can be disastrous to follow and, indeed, actually cause anxiety.

Happy aims to reclaim happiness and to enable us to appreciate the good things in life, in all their transient glory. By taking control of the stories we tell ourselves, by remembering that 'everything's fine' even when it might not feel that way, we can allow ourselves to flourish and to live more happily.

"Crammed with wisdom and insight . . . I'm going to recommend it to everyone I know" Stephen Fry

"Witty, useful and beautifully written"The Sunday Times

© Derren Brown 2016 (P) Penguin Audio 2018

Reviews

Witty, useful and beautifully written... this book grapples expansively with the most profound questions any of us face

—— The Sunday Times

Brilliant. Really brilliant and just crammed with wisdom and insight. It will genuinely make a difference to me and the way I think about myself. I'm going to recommend it to everyone I know.

—— Stephen Fry

Brown tries to resurrect the original Stoic ambitions here: not just to live well but to die well, too. His book is thoughtful, insightful and ultimately, well, helpful.

—— Sunday Times Books of the Year

Til now, we've known Derren Brown as a supreme illusionist and magician. Now he surprises us with a new and brilliant identity: as a philosopher. Not just any philosopher. Brown takes philosophy back to its truest task: that of helping us to live and die well. His book is deeply informative, moving, wise and full of love. It sets out to change lives - and it will. Derren has pulled off a properly implausible trick: that of making the deepest ideas relevant, humane and urgent.

—— Alain de Botton

In this wise and perceptive book Derren Brown has conjoined personal experience, profoundly sensible psychology and the magic of philosophy to produce a really excellent account of how to be happy - really, maturely, properly happy. This is a wonderfully educative - and enjoyable! - book, and should be on everyone's reading list, always.

—— A.C. Grayling

Her descriptions of the psychological forces underlying the way doctors act … is fascinating, with succinct explorations.

—— Literary Review

Fascinating, troubling, educative. Read Elton and weep and then think, argue and implement what needs doing to support not squander our medics.

—— Susie Orbach

Have you ever wondered what your doctor thinks and feels once you walk out the door? Also Human is the uncensored answer - and it’s haunting, beautiful, and urgent for all of us to know.

—— Johann Hari

An important, necessary book. Also Human shows that doctors are indeed all so human.

—— Dean Burnett, author of The Idiot Brain

Doctors are people, too. They possess the same virtues, faults, fears and desires of the rest of us but it's easy for patients to forget this obvious truth. Caroline Elton's revelatory, sometimes disturbing, book, is a welcome reminder of this. For doctors and patients alike, this book is required reading.

—— Nick Rennison , Daily Mail

A shocking indictment of a system of training and supervision that ought to have gone out of fashion and use decades ago. Caroline Elton's incisive prose, and her impatience with the way people display prejudice and poor practice in front of her makes for very good, if highly disturbing, reading. I was horrified by this book, but so glad she has written it.

—— Julia Neuberger

Shocking… a graphic exposé of the exhaustion, depression, and stress among doctors and it has sent shock waves across the health services.

—— Irish Examiner

Timely, passionately argued.

—— British Journal of General Practice

A compelling book from start to finish. Cohen-Hatton uses her own experiences as a firefighter to expose the psychology behind her decisions and emotions. A great read and accessible to all.

—— Phil Butler, University of Cardiff

A compelling and exciting read. A great insight into decision-making on the front line of firefighting . . . Immersive stories, tension and fantastic lessons to take away. I loved it!

—— Flt Lt (Rtd) Mandy Hickson, former RAF Tornado pilot

One of the UK's most senior firefighters share heart-in-the-mouth stories from her 18 years in the emergency services, taking us to the very heat of battle; from scenes of devastation and crisis, to the quieter moments when these unassuming heroes question both themselves and the decisions they are forced to make. As we all as being extraordinarily courageous, Cohen-Hatton has an impressive professional track record: her award winning research into decision-making in the emergency services has transformed policy at a global level.

—— The Bookseller

A fascinating read

—— Dan Walker , BBC Breakfast

This book is incredible!

—— Louise Minchin , BBC Breakfast

WOW! I just could not put it down! . . . It will enlighten people about the human aspects of firefighting, the challenges of decision-making under pressure and the way in which university research has helped to understand and improve the way leaders approach critical decisions. It’s certainly made me think about how I can use the principles discussed to help people in a variety of leadership positions.

—— Karen Holford, Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Cardiff University

This book will change the way you think. Forever.

—— Cosmpolitan

As well as being a fire-fighter, she’s a fire-thinker, and that’s what makes this book stand out.

—— Daily Mail

An inspiring, vivid account of the dangerous world of firefighting

—— Jane Shilling , Daily Mail

Wang . . . eloquently balances personal narrative and empirical research to offer a powerful series of insights into a woefully misunderstood world.

—— SF Weekly

This beautifully written work will expand your thinking about severe mental illness and mental illness in general

—— Rewire.News

The Collected Schizophrenias is illumination and important--not only because it educates and challenges--but because it forces us to consider how much we still have to work to undo historical and systematic damage, to challenge our own broken, misguided partiality towards what it means to be healthy and sane

—— The Arkansas International

[The Collected Schizophrenias] organizes the confusion, terror and complexity of [Wang's] experience into an imperfectly cohesive, profoundly illuminating whole.

—— Shelf Awareness

Penetrating and revelatory.

—— Publisher's Weekly

This mesmerizing collection of essays has achieved the rarest of rarities--a meaningful and expansive language for a subject that has been long bound by both deep revulsion and intense fascination

—— Jenny Zhang

A brilliant guide to the complexities of thinking about illness, and mental illness, in particular. It will bring hope to others searching to understand their own diagnoses

—— Meghan O'Rourke

A masterful braiding of the achingly personal and the incisively researched. . . . This book is a vital, illuminating window onto the world we all already live in, but find all too easy to ignore

—— Alexandra Kleeman

You won't find any pity-baiting, sensationalism, or false positivity here; Wang is so candidly aware that I'd trust her over my own diary

—— Tony Tulathimutte

Esmé Weijun Wang offers us an all-access pass to her beautiful, unquiet mind. . . Rarely has a book about living with mental illness felt so immediate, raw, and powerful

—— Dani Shapiro

The Collected Schizophrenias is at once generous and brilliantly nuanced, rigorous and bold. It had me rethinking what it is to be well or ill.

—— R.O. Kwon

Esmé Weijun Wang sends out revelatory dispatches from an under-mapped land, shot like arrows in all directions from a taut bow of a mind. . . . Her work changes the way we think about illness - which is to say that it changes us

—— Whiting Award Selection Committee
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