Joyful is a fascinating exploration of how the spaces and objects we interact with daily can significantly impact our mood and happiness. Ingrid Fetell Lee, a renowned designer and TED speaker, delves into groundbreaking research from neuroscience and psychology to explain how making small changes to our surroundings can create extraordinary happiness in our lives.

Have you ever wondered why we stop to admire the orange glow of a sunset or why cherry blossoms captivate us every spring? Is there a reason why people of all ages and cultures are charmed by baby animals and can't resist smiling at a burst of confetti or colorful balloons?

We are often told that our physical environment has little effect on our inner joy. However, what if the vibrant world around us is our most renewable and accessible source of happiness?

In this enlightening book, Lee reveals how seemingly mundane spaces and objects can have surprising and powerful effects on our emotions. She explains why certain settings make us feel anxious or competitive, while others foster acceptance and delight. Most importantly, she shows how we can harness the power of our surroundings to live fuller, healthier, and truly joyful lives.

The Atlas of Happiness is a fun, illustrated guide that takes us on a journey around the world, uncovering the secrets to happiness. Helen Russell, the author of The Year of Living Danishly, explores the fascinating ways that different nations search for happiness in their lives and what they can teach us about our own quest for meaning.

This charming and diverse assortment of advice, history, and philosophies includes:

• Sobremesa from Spain
• Turangawaewae from New Zealand
• Azart from Russia
• Tarab from Syria
• Joie de vivre from Canada
• and many more.

From Australia to Wales, via Bhutan, Ireland, Finland, Turkey, Syria, Japan, and many more, The Atlas of Happiness uncovers the global secrets to happiness and how they can change our lives.

The Antidote is a thought-provoking, counterintuitive, and ultimately uplifting guide to understanding the much-misunderstood idea of happiness. Self-help books don't seem to work, and few of the many advantages of modern life seem capable of lifting our collective mood. Wealth—even if you can get it—doesn't necessarily lead to happiness. Romance, family life, and work often bring as much stress as joy. We can't even agree on what "happiness" means.

So, are we engaged in a futile pursuit? Or are we just going about it the wrong way? Looking both east and west, in bulletins from the past and from far afield, Oliver Burkeman introduces us to an unusual group of people who share a single, surprising way of thinking about life. Whether they are experimental psychologists, terrorism experts, Buddhists, hardheaded business consultants, Greek philosophers, or modern-day gurus, they argue that in our personal lives and in society at large, it's our constant effort to be happy that is making us miserable.

There is an alternative path to happiness and success that involves embracing failure, pessimism, insecurity, and uncertainty—the very things we spend our lives trying to avoid. This book is a series of journeys among people who share this surprising way of thinking about life. Burkeman talks to life coaches paid to make their clients' lives a living hell, and to maverick security experts such as Bruce Schneier, who contends that the changes we've made to airport and aircraft security since the 9/11 attacks have actually made us less safe. And then there are the "backwards" business gurus, who suggest not having any goals at all and not planning for a company's future.

It's a witty, fascinating, and subversive message, which turns out to have a long and distinguished philosophical lineage ranging from ancient Roman Stoic philosophers to Buddhists.

Lucky Go Happy is an amusing, modern-day fable for adults and teens alike. It offers insight into being happier and being happy more often. Happiness, emotions, and positive psychology are abstract concepts that are generally difficult to explain and understand. Lucky Go Happy unpacks these abstract concepts using elementary graphs and images, conveyed through a fable, making for an informative and entertaining read for young and old.

The story follows the adventures of Lucky the Rat, who has been sent into the African Bush by King Lion to discover what makes other animals happy. Through various encounters with remarkable characters, Lucky captures some reviving new takes on happiness, which he has to present to King Lion in a report before the next rainy season. King Lion hopes to regain his own happiness after reading the report.

Lucky Go Happy will demonstrate how we lose more than 70 percent of potential happy time by living for weekends only, explain how contentment can yield the same amount of happiness as ecstasy, provide concrete proof that money can never make us happy, and highlight why it is absolutely essential to be unhappy at times. It illustrates why a midlife crisis happens, shows that happiness is not around the next corner but here and now, and helps you understand how happiness works.

Rather than waiting for happiness, you can make it happen for yourself and for those around you!

Gretchen Rubin had an epiphany one rainy afternoon in the unlikeliest of places: a city bus. “The days are long, but the years are short,” she realized. “Time is passing, and I’m not focusing enough on the things that really matter.” In that moment, she decided to dedicate a year to her happiness project.

In this lively and compelling account, Rubin chronicles her adventures during the twelve months she spent test-driving the wisdom of the ages, current scientific research, and lessons from popular culture about how to be happier. Among other things, she found that novelty and challenge are powerful sources of happiness; that money can help buy happiness, when spent wisely; that outer order contributes to inner calm; and that the very smallest of changes can make the biggest difference.

Written with charm and wit, The Happiness Project is illuminating yet entertaining, thought-provoking yet compulsively readable. Gretchen Rubin's passion for her subject jumps off the page, and reading just a few chapters of this book will inspire you to start your own happiness project.

Epictetus was born into slavery about 55 C.E. in the eastern outreaches of the Roman Empire. Sold as a child and crippled from the beatings of his master, Epictetus was eventually freed, rising from his humble roots to establish an influential school of Stoic philosophy. Stressing that human beings cannot control life, only how they respond to it, Epictetus dedicated his life to outlining the simple way to happiness, fulfillment, and tranquility.

By putting into practice the ninety-three witty, wise, and razor-sharp instructions that make up The Art of Living, readers learn to successfully meet the challenges of everyday life and face life's inevitable losses and disappointments with grace. Epictetus's teachings rank among the greatest wisdom texts of human civilization.

Sharon Lebell presents this esteemed philosopher's invaluable insights for the first time in a splendidly down-to-earth rendition. The result is the West's first and best primer for living the best possible life—as helpful in the twenty-first century as it was in the first.

Legendary psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's famous investigations of "optimal experience" have revealed that what makes an experience genuinely satisfying is a state of consciousness called flow. During flow, people typically experience deep enjoyment, creativity, and a total involvement with life.

In this new edition of his groundbreaking classic work, Csikszentmihalyi demonstrates the ways this positive state can be controlled, not just left to chance. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience teaches how, by ordering the information that enters our consciousness, we can discover true happiness, unlock our potential, and greatly improve the quality of our lives.

Drawing on more than 2,500 years of Buddhist tradition and teaching, the spiritual leader demonstrates how to confront the negative emotions, stresses, and obstacles of everyday life in order to find the source of inner peace.