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The Happiness Project

Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun

New York Times Bestseller

One rainy afternoon, while riding a city bus, Gretchen Rubin asked herself, “What do I want from life, anyway?” She answered, “I want to be happy”—yet she spent no time thinking about her happiness. In a flash, she decided to dedicate a year to a happiness project. The result? One of the most thoughtful and engaging works on happiness to have emerged from the recent explosion of interest in the subject.

Book cover of The Happiness Project
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The Happiness Project synthesizes the wisdom of the ages with current scientific research, as Rubin brings readers along on her year to greater happiness.

In fact, Rubin’s “happiness project” no longer describes just a book or a blog; it’s a movement. Happiness Project groups, where people meet to discuss their happiness projects, have sprung up across the country—and across the world. Hundreds of book groups have discussed the book; professors, teachers, psychiatrists, and clergy assign it.

The Happiness Project has appeared in Fantasy Island, Big Little Lies, Orange is the New Black, The Night Agent, and it was even an answer on the game-show Jeopardy!

REVIEWS & BUZZ

“Rubin writes with keen senses of self and narrative, balancing the personal and the universal with a light touch.” “Rubin’s project makes curiously compulsive reading, which is enough to make any reader happy.”

—Publishers Weekly, starred review

“Aided by her formidable intelligence and willingness to try anything, she spent a year road-testing every theory about happiness she could get her hands on, using her own life as the road.”

—TIME

“Rubin masterfully interweaves touching and often funny personal anecdotes into the analysis of her progress, resulting in a friendly, approachable and compulsively readable narrative that will not only make you want to start your own Happiness Project, but will also make you want to invite Rubin out for a cup of coffee and a cruller.”

—San Diego Union-Tribune

“Before I even finished the book, I had already preordered multiple copies of Gretchen Rubin’s latest title, The Happiness Project. Which means if you’re looking for an enlightening, laugh-aloud read, get the book and forget the rest of this review.”

—Christian Science Monitor

“For those who generally loathe the self-help genre, Rubin’s book is a breath of peppermint-scented air. Well-researched and sharply written, she sprinkles her text with observations on happiness from Aristotle and Plutarch, Samuel Johnson and Martin Seligman, The Dalai Lama and Oprah.”

—Cleveland Plain Dealer

The Happiness Project Companion Guide [PDF Download]

Want to start your own Happiness Project? This 34-page guide is designed to help you apply the ideas from Gretchen Rubin’s bestselling book to your own life.

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Sample Chapter

Read the first chapter of The Happiness Project. 

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Discussion Guide​

A one page discussion guide for book groups or other discussion groups.

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The Happiness Project 10th Anniversary Edition Gretchen Rubin

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