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David Malouf - The Happy Life - 9780701187118 - KMK0014614
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The Happy Life

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Description for The Happy Life Hardcover. Addresses one of the most fundamental questions of all: what makes for a happy life? This title explores the sensual happiness of the flesh; covers the difficulties of the modern world's obsession with consumption; and, finally the consolation and sympathy provided by art and literature. Num Pages: 112 pages, Illustrations. BIC Classification: DNF. Category: (G) General (US: Trade). Dimension: 186 x 116 x 14. Weight in Grams: 158. Clean copy fine in dust wrapper. DW showing light shelf wear. Remains a very good copy

In The Happy Life David Malouf addresses one of the most fundamental questions of all: what makes for a happy life? In an age where our bookshelves are full of self-help volumes and tales of perfect romantic love, his discussion is particularly relevant. He asks why, when so many of the essential 'unhappinesses' - premature death, famine, plague, material poverty - have largely disappeared in the developed world, does happiness continue to elude us?
With elegance and insight, David Malouf finds new and old ways to talk about contentment and the self. He returns to the wisdom of the classics, and discusses how, thanks to Thomas Jefferson, happiness became a 'right'; in a dialogue on Rubens and Rembrandt he explores the sensual happiness of the flesh; he covers the difficulties of the modern world's obsession with consumption; and finally the consolation and sympathy provided by art and literature.
In luminous prose, with ideas to savour and reflect upon, Malouf distills millennia of thought and philosophy in The Happy Life into a fascinating and tangible argument.

Product Details

Format
Hardback
Publication date
2012
Publisher
Chatto & Windus
Condition
Used, Very Good
Number of Pages
112
Place of Publication
London, United Kingdom
ISBN
9780701187118
SKU
KMK0014614
Shipping Time
Usually ships in 2 to 4 working days
Ref
99-1

About David Malouf
David Malouf is an internationally acclaimed author. His books include the novels The Great World (winner of the Commonwealth Writers' prize and the Prix Femina Étranger), Remembering Babylon (shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and winner of the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award), An Imaginary Life, Conversations at Curlow Creek, and his latest, Ransom (winner of the Criticos Prize), the short story collections Dream Stuff ('These stories are pearls' Spectator), and Every Move You Make ('Rare and luminous talent' Guardian), and his autobiographical classic 12 Edmondstone Street. His Collected Stories won the 2008 Australia-Asia Literary Award. In 2008 Malouf was the Scottish Arts' Council Muriel Spark International Fellow. Born in 1934 in Brisbane, he now lives in Sydney.

Reviews for The Happy Life
The Happy Life is about how art speaks for our individuality, explains our happiness or lack of it, and is perhaps our happiness itself, as though in art we become happy
Howard Jacobson The Happy Life brilliantly provokes thought and invites debate. David Malouf makes a fascinating and valuable contribution to that essential precondition of happiness: namely, the task of understanding what it is
A.C. Grayling The Happy Life is a poised and deeply humane essay, beautifully written and carefully argued
The Weekend Australian
His voice is so inclusive... I felt comforted and awakened and stimulated. A lovely, lovely piece of writing
Marieke Hardy (Australian critic) Sentence by sentence the essay stimulates. It is contemporary but draws from a deep well... It is ideal material for reading groups, dinner parties or even the well-nigh extinct artist in the lonely tower
Gerard Windsor (Australian critic)

Goodreads reviews for The Happy Life


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