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Happiness by Design: Finding Pleasure and Purpose in Everyday Life Paperback – 1 Jan 2015

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Paul Dolan (Author)
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Paul Dolan (Author)
4.0 out of 5 stars 136 customer reviews
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Product details

  • Paperback: 256 pages
  • Publisher: Penguin (1 Jan. 2015)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0141977531
  • ISBN-13: 978-0141977539
  • Product Dimensions: 12.9 x 1.5 x 19.8 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (136 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 29,838 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Product Description

Review

For Dolan, purpose and pleasure are both basic constituents of happiness. This is a bold and original move ... Among the imperfect definitions of happiness, the pleasure-purpose concept that Dolan offers is, I believe, a strong contender. It is a good description of what I wish for my grandchildren: a life that is rich in activities that are both pleasurable and meaningful.

Paul Dolan is an inveterate optimist who has overcome many obstacles on his way to becoming an internationally recognized expert on well-being. The optimism shows on every page of this book. In particular, Paul is optimistic about you, his reader. He believes that you can make your life both pleasurable and meaningful with deliberate choices, about the environment you create for yourself and about the aspects of life that deserve your attention. He offers a great deal of sound advice on how to make these choices and how to follow through with them

(Daniel Kahneman, Nobel Laureate)

It tells us what matters to us. Few books change one's life; in 48 hours this has improved mine . . . Anyone who wonders if they are living their lives as fully as they might will find ideas worth thinking about in this engaging, persuasive book (Jenni Russell Sunday Times)

Dolan is especially illuminating when it comes to bigger life-choices . . . Dolan makes a persuasive case that happiness might really be simple. His book is a powerful reminder not to get caught up in overthinking things, but to focus instead on maximising what actually delivers joy . . . and most of us would benefit from listening to him (Oliver Burkeman Guardian)

[Dolan's] discoveries at once confound your expectations and provide an appreciable way of acting on that knowledge . . . full of facts that make you go: "Huh." (Richard Godwin Evening Standard)

Dolan's book is aimed at the lay reader who wants to be more cheerful without recourse to airy-fairy notions of spirituality or philosophy (Rowan Pelling Telegraph)

Outstanding, cutting-edge, and profound. If you're going to read one book on happiness, this is the one (Nassim Nicholas Taleb, bestselling author of The Black Swan and Antifragile)

Happiness by Design is the best kind of psychology book: the ideas are fascinating, understanding them will make your life happier and more meaningful, and Dolan expresses them beautifully. Whether you're a novice or a voracious consumer of happiness research, Happiness by Design hits all the right notes (Adam Alter, bestselling author of Drunk Tank Pink)

Dolan gives a comprehensive overview of the science of happiness and useful tips to achieve it. In his quest to explain what makes us happy, Dolan touches on a powerful idea: happiness need not be pursued, simply rediscovered. In other words, sources of pleasure and purpose are all around us, if only one knows where to look (Scientific American)

Dolan wants...to make us think about life in terms of a balance of pleasure and purpose. Some of us are 'pleasure machines', seeking out short-term gratification without paying close enough attention to our lifelong goals; some of us are 'purpose engines', so determined to get to the destination that we miss the view along the way. Whichever we are, we need to find a bit more of the other. (Archie Bland The Independent)

Review

'Few books change one's life; in 48 hours this has improved mine ... Anyone who wonders if they are living their lives as fully as they might will find ideas worth thinking about in this engaging, persuasive book.' (The Sunday Times)

'Dolan makes a persuasive case that happiness might really be simple. His book is a powerful reminder not to get caught up in overthinking things, but to focus instead on maximising what actually delivers joy ... and most of us would benefit from listening to him.' (The Guardian)

'Outstanding, cutting-edge, and profound. If you're going to read one book on happiness, this is the one.' (Nassim Nicholas Taleb, bestselling author of The Black Swan and Antifragile) --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.

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Customer Reviews

Top Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 starsSome good ideas but I wouldn't recommend it as a self-help book
By suilven on 25 Sept. 2014
Format: Kindle Edition Verified Purchase
This book has two main parts. The first part defines happiness and says what the current thinking is about it. It's by no means the first book to describe the ingredients of happiness but the emphasis on purpose is an interesting idea. We are all aware of the psychological bias we have towards current versus future pleasure (e.g. having some cake now, before we start our diet). The author highlights another bias which is that we wrongly assume that simple pleasures such as watching TV will make us happier than purposeful activities such as work. It's a useful perspective.

The second part offers some advice about how to put these ideas into practice. Unfortunately (for the reader!) the author has a successful career, a well-balanced life and is naturally a very happy and active person. If you have real problems, many of the ideas will comes across as trivial and patronising, such as "spend more time with people you like", "improve your commute", "spend less time on the internet" and "stop procrastinating". He even goes into his own experiences of owning a high-powered sports car and bodybuilding. Anyone lonely, jobless or ill is liable to be thoroughly depressed by the time they get to the end of that lot!

Further thoughts:
Well, at least the book got me thinking, but I suspect that the effect of making tweaks to one's life is likely to be short-lived. I recall an experiment in which office workers' morale improved when their lighting was changed... up or down! Of course the morale boost wore off quickly and was likely caused by the novelty factor plus the feeling that someone cared about their wellbeing.Read more ›
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1.0 out of 5 starsAlways read Amazon Reviews before buying a book.
By Mike Stephens on 14 Jun. 2015
Format: Paperback
Happiness is a very tricky subject. Part of the motivation of picking this book off the shelf at the Welcome Institute was to see how someone ostensibly credible would define it. In Thinking Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman showed that asking the same questions only in a different order can make people report entirely different levels of happiness. But there I’ve done it: I’ve slipped into the trap of equating reports of how happy a person you think you are overall with how you actually feel right now. As a result I can’t say what I wanted to say. I wanted to say this book made me feel happy when I’d finished reading it – happy that I wouldn’t have to read any more of the drivel in it. But it was just relief, not happiness. In fact I was left less happy. I am confused as to how Dolan ever got to be a professor, how this book got through the editors at Penguin, and why some people seem to think there is some value in having read it.
Dolan draws upon 28 pages of references but – quite the opposite of Kahneman – fails totally to build any kind of story from all of this research. His points are vague, half-baked, baffling, confused and completely unconvincing. Disappointingly he not only fails to clarify what happiness is and how you might measure it let alone maximise it, but half the time talks about things which are not obviously happiness at all. There’s a load of stuff about being more efficient at work, avoiding procrastination etc without this being tied back to the title of the book.
Despite his elevated academic status Dolan is also very suspect in his scientific accuracy. As an extreme example, early on he says you would not notice a doubling of sound from 50 to 100 decibels. In fact 100 decibels is not twice as loud 50; it’s actually ten thousand times.Read more ›
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3.0 out of 5 stars... era where everyone constantly seems to be striving for happiness, this offers the tantalising prospect of how you ...
By R. A. Mansfield VINE VOICE on 17 Oct. 2014
Format: Hardcover Vine Customer Review of Free Product ( What's this? )
The subject matter of this book is really intriguing - in an era where everyone constantly seems to be striving for happiness, this offers the tantalising prospect of how you can achieve it.

And I can imagine some people really enjoying this book. To do so, though, requires you to be fairly analytical in nature and happy to wade through a lot of chaff to find the wheat.

The likes of Dan Ariely, Malcolm Gladwell and Daniel Kahneman (who the author has worked with and who supplies a cover quote) have made psychology 'cool' in recent years, without necessarily dumbing down or ignoring the science bit.

And there's no way you could accuse Paul Dolan of dumbing down. Far from it.

And this is the book's main failing. It is so overloaded with science and data that it's far too tough going.

Added to that, the writing style is simply not engaging enough to propel this into top-seller status.

I'm sure Paul Dolan is a first-class scientist and I possibly don't have the intellectual rigour to truly do this material justice, but he's not a compelling enough writer which is why I can't rate the book any higher.
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5.0 out of 5 starsThis is a happiness book like you've never seen one before
By Sarah O'Farrell on 18 Sept. 2014
Format: Hardcover
This is a happiness book like you've never seen one before.

Most books in this canon will ask you to re-train your brain. However, brain training for happiness is an incredibly difficult task and takes year of work - everyone from Buddhist monks to frazzled city-workers to melancholic meaning-seekers struggles with it. This is because we're essentially hardwired to freak out (it's evolutionary - our natural tendency to focus on the negative used to keep us alive when threats loomed around every cave corner) and the skill and effort needed to re-set our Palaeolithic programming should not be underestimated.

This book blazes a new trail by showing us that there is a new way to wellbeing. Dolan empowers us with a strategy for achieving happiness that does not require us to overcome the deeply ingrained thinking patterns that evolution has left us with, but rather one that shows us how to work with them and to use them to our advantage.

Given that most of our feelings, thoughts and behaviours are automatic reactions to stimuli that we process unconsciously, Dolan shows us that we can actually design our environment so that the feelings, thoughts and behaviours that are most conducive to happiness are systematically and continually triggered, independent of any need for brain training or active "thought management". By optimally designing our physical and social contexts, we can relax the effortful happiness-seeking remit of the conscious mind, safe in the knowledge that our unconscious brain will be bouncing off the types of stimuli and sensations that science has proven will make us feel good.Read more ›
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 starsdecent quality

Arrived safely and in good condition. A quality paperback.

Published 1 month ago by Chris L
5.0 out of 5 starsA Superb Read!!

Couldn't recommend this book any higher for anyone who wants an original and intellectual insight on improving their happiness aka pleasure and purpose in life! Read more

Published 1 month ago by Joe Maguire
5.0 out of 5 starsFive Stars

Good

Published 6 months ago by Heliana Pacheco
4.0 out of 5 starsEasy to follow

Well researched book and thought provoking. Has a lot of valid points.

Published 7 months ago by Shriya
3.0 out of 5 starsIt's informative, but not recommend for non-native-english speakers.

Not good as expected, the literature is very uncommon and lack of direct which confuses nonnative-english-speaker readers. Although the message is clear, it isn't organised well. Read more

Published 7 months ago by Amazon Customer
1.0 out of 5 starsAt first glance I think you would expect it to be a fairly light read...

I was given this book as a gift. At first glance I think you would expect it to be a fairly light read with lots of positive and innovative ideas on becoming happier. Wrong. Read more

Published 8 months ago by c macpherson
5.0 out of 5 starsHow to become happier

This is really useful and, I would guess, could improve the happiness of most of its readers. Early on in this book, behavioural economist Paul Dolan relates the progress of a long... Read more

Published 9 months ago by Neasa MacErlean
5.0 out of 5 starsIt is a thinking man's guide to how to engineer a happier life....

This is not your usual feel-good self help book. It is a thinking man's guide to how to engineer a happier life. Read more

Published 9 months ago by Thomas_A_London
5.0 out of 5 starsFive Stars

ver nice book

Published 9 months ago by Ganesh Sarin
5.0 out of 5 starsInspiring Book

Inspiring Book, Great Read.

Published 9 months ago by BS

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