Book Club Choices for December 2013

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Because nothing boosts happiness more than a great book, each month, I suggest:

—one outstanding book about happiness
—one outstanding work of children’s or young-adult literature—I have a crazy passion for kidlit
—one eccentric pick—an excellent book that I love, yes, but one that may not appeal to everyone

Shop at Amazon (I’m an affiliate), or your favorite local bookstore. Or visit the library! Drumroll…

An outstanding book about happiness:

—Baumeister and Tierney, Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength.

Buy from Amazon.

An outstanding young-adult book:

—Peter Cameron’s Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You.

Buy from Amazon.

An eccentric pick:

Lytton Strachey’s Queen Victoria.

Buy from Amazon.

I’ve noticed that many times, when someone describes a book to me, I want to read it less. And often, weirdly, the better a book is, the worse it sounds. So I won’t describe these books, but I love all the books I recommend; I’ve read them at least twice if not many times; and they’re widely loved.

If you read last month’s recommendations…what did you think? Roenneberg’s Internal Time; Pope’s The Sherwood Ring; and LeBlanc’s Random Family.

So, so, so good.

From 2006 through 2014, as she wrote The Happiness Project and Happier at Home, Gretchen chronicled her thoughts, observations, and discoveries on The Happiness Project Blog.

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