Seven Pleasures Essays on Ordinary Happiness [Paperback]

What does it mean to be happy? Ever since the Founding Fathers invited every citizen to join the pursuit of happiness, Americans have been studying and pining for that elusive state of mind. But rather than explaining happiness, inSeven PleasuresWillard Spiegelman demonstrates it: he immerses usin the joyful, illuminating practice of seven simple pleasures dancing, reading, walking, looking, listening, swimming, and writingand evokes all the satisfactions they offer. Lighthearted, insightful, and deeply felt,Seven Pleasuresis a portrait of pure enjoyment.

Few happy people write books, but when they do, they confer the blessings of wisdom and their sanguine nature on the unhappy many. I learned so much fromSeven Pleasures. I felt that Willard Spiegelman was personally walking me through all the steps necessary to dance the tango of bliss that he has so delightfully mastered. Edmund White, author of Hotel de Dream

Willard Spiegelman'sSeven Pleasuresmounts a gentle and persuasive argument for what years ago would have been called a more civilized life. And it reminds us what we owe ourselves: that attempt to appreciate as fully as possible that we are here, right now, wherever here may be. Jim Shepard, author of Like You'd Understand, Anyway

Willard Spiegelman has written a tidy cordial of a book. Like a soign? combination of Don Giovanni and a college dean, he serves his nectar with a sassy, ironic instructiveness. He gets life right. Wayne Koestenbaum, author of Hotel Theory

Willard Spiegelman is our invaluably companionable philosopher of normalcy, and we are happy to benefit here from his wisdom, wit, and well-stocked mind. Phillip Lopate, author of Against Joie de Vivre

Spiegelman's essays are wonderful advertisements for taking pleasure in the ordinary, and reminders that we're never too old to take dancing or swimming lessons, or to learn to be lost in Venicel3: