The Pursuit of Happiness: And Why It's Making Us Anxious (Paperback)

"I LOVED this book. I found it SO WELL WRITTEN, so witty and funny and reading it I was often envious of Ruth Whippman's facility with language. It is a hugely engaging read, accessible and so relevant ... I really, really, really, really enjoyed it and am quite evangelical about it." -- Marian Keyes, author of THE WOMAN WHO STOLE MY LIFE
"Like Bill Bryson, Whippman has a willingness to play up cultural differences to comic effect ... She also has Bryson's sharp ear for language ... With warm wit and chilling logic, The Pursuit of Happiness shows that the human desire for contentment can be manipulated and distorted until it is barely recognisable ... A whip-smart British Bill Bryson." * Sunday Times *
"[Ruth Whippman] writes with sharpness and wit" * Evening Standard *
"Ruth Whippman is my new favorite cultural critic, and her book was such a joy to read that I temporarily forgot about all my neuroses. It's a shrewd, hilarious analysis of why a country obsessed with happiness is so darn unhappy." -- Adam Grant, author of GIVE AND TAKE, ORIGINALS, and OPTION B (coauthored with Sheryl Sandberg)
"Those wanting to understand the complex reality of our personal quest for happiness might usefully turn to Ruth Whippman's The Pursuit of Happiness - the lively memoir of a British journalist in California, on the hunt for that elusive but, as she sees it, increasingly sought-after, American ideal of happiness ... Whippman - whose narrative voice is an unlikely mix of Kathy Lette's and Louis Theroux's - has followed her husband to Silicon Valley to start a new life ... Whippman argues persuasively that happiness is something that emerges from the quality of relationships we have with others ... The Pursuit of Happiness also sheds light on the link between religion and happiness." * Times Literary Supplement *