The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin

Gretchen Rubin would be the first to say she has no cause for complaint, but despite having a healthy, happy family and no real money worries, she felt a certain lack of something. Shouldn’t she be brimming with happiness every day? As a writer/researcher, she decided to invest a year in studying and practicing ways to increase her personal happiness. This sounds like another narcissistic entry in the overcrowded pantheon of self-help manuals, but Rubin’s unflinching, funny honesty about her efforts is enhanced by insights gleaned from intensive research. Much like Julie and Julia, the memoir about cooking every recipe in Julia Child’s cookbook, The Happiness Project entertains and enlightens. It also became a book after her blog about the project gathered a huge following. Each month is devoted to practicing and improving one of the twelve things she identified as being critical to her sense of well-being. Each of us would have a different list, but the process she developed is meaningful because it works with our imperfections rather than just hectoring us to surmount them. She nailed my tendency not to do something until I can do it well with this “Secret of Adulthood”: “Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.”

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Suggested by Sarah Redman