What does it mean to be happy? Americans have had an obsession with €œthe pursuit of happiness€ ever since the Founding Fathers enshrined it€”along with life and liberty€”as our national birthright. Whether it means the accumulation of wealth or a more vaguely understood notion of self-fulfillment or self-actualization, happiness has been an inevitable, though elusive, goal. But it is hard to separate €œreal€ happiness from the banal self-help version that embraces mindless positive thinking. And though we have two booming €œhappiness industries€€”religion, with its promise of salvation, and psychopharmacology, with its promise of better living through chemistry€”each comes with its own problems and complications. In Seven Pleasures, Willard Spiegelman takes a look at the possibilities for achieving ordinary secular happiness without recourse to either religion or drugs. In this erudite and
