Happiness by Design Finding Pleasure and Purpose in Everyday Life by Paul Dolan - Paperback

Many of the reviews here critique either the writing style or the fact that the book does not offer new insights.I vehemently disagree with both criticisms.If you went to university or are a native speaker (which I am not), you should not struggle with the readability of this book. Dolan refrains from using jargon, and the writing style is much more like a popular science book than publications in an academic journal would be.The second criticism is that this book does not offer new insights. People that claim this clearly struggle with reading comprehension. Dolan offers two very novel insights in this monumental piece. One is on how to design your life in order to maximize for happiness. The second is that offers a novel approach to decision-making that helps you maximize happiness. I read a lot of literature on the topic of happiness - both popular science and academic - and had never read this material before.With this book you will make better choices in apartments, movies, jobs and romantic partners. If you think I am exaggerating, do yourself a favor and order the book. You won't be disappointed, but you will be happier - by design.

I think this book is a really good read, and I have recommended it to a lot of friends and family. I do love a good popular science book anyway, so I really liked that this book is not framed as a 'self-help' manual, but is an accessible drawing together of the research that the author has undertaken on the subject. I found some of the themes within the book to be incredibly useful, from the perspective of changing how one feels about (and perceives) happiness. For me, the two key things that came out of the book were: 1. that you need both pleasure and purpose in your life to be happy (and obviously the correct balance of these for the individual concerned); and 2. that thinking you can only be happy if/when you have achieved the 'big-ticket' item (be it relationship, house, money, job etc etc), is wrong, and results in an unhappy lot, as your perception of how happy you are actually reflects the aggregate of those small moments of happiness you experience each day. So after having read this book (a number of times!) I now make sure that I get a measure of 'pleasure' in my day (to balance out the 'purpose' - which I have too much of, unfortunately!), and I make sure that I recognise and seek out small moments of joy each day (that delicious coffee, speaking with a friend, looking at my children sleeping...) and I am so much happier for it. And those big-ticket items no longer stand in the way... I feel quite liberated! Thank you so much, Paul Dolan - keep up the good work!!

This book is very insightful, providing a simple model and framework when looking further into the complexity of what happiness really is. The author discusses at length (backed up by years of research) the difference between pleasure and purpose, and how both have an effect on our happiness overall. Like all books on happiness, the book itself wont magically change your life, but it can provide new knowledge and understanding of how to do so. I for instance, discovered from reading this book, it is more a sense of purpose I lack in my life. Now I'm aware of it, it is down to myself to take action and make the necessary changes.

Effective book on finding happiness and improving one's life through appreciating the ordinary day-to-day routines. I am pleased with my purchase and would buy again.

Great book if you like science and studies. This is heavy going but has some interesting points. It's not for the faint hearted though. As an avid reader of most subjects, this is taking me ages to read.