Tanya reads The Art of Happiness

I’ve never been one to have an all-time favourite book – especially considering I own an entire bookshop; there’s just too many to choose from – but The Art of Happiness comes really close. It’s one of those books where you can flip through to any page and find some beautiful pearls of wisdom to guide you on this journey through life. The book takes the form of a series of questions and answers, posed by renowned psychiatrist Howard C. Cutler to the Dalai Lama. Through this combined wisdom of psychology and spirituality, we learn about the true purpose of our life – to seek happiness – and that this happiness is determined more by our state of mind than by anything external. The messages conveyed are powerful and uplifting, and I could read this book over and over again. I’ll leave you with one of my favourite quotes from the book – and a life lesson to live by.

“If you want others to be happy, practise compassion. If you want to be happy, practise compassion.”

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Recommended Reading List

Recommended Reading List

1] The Art of Happiness – Dalai Lama & Howard C. Cutler

2] Of Love & Other Demons – Gabriel Garcia Marquez

3] Jitterbug Perfume – Tom Robbins

4] Tales of The Night – Peter Hoeg

5] Losing My Virginity – Richard Branson

6] Catch 22 – Joseph Heller

7] i, Lucifer – Glen Duncan

8] Q & A – Vikas Swarup

9] A Scanner Darkly – Philip K Dick

10] Little Women – Louisa May Alcott

11] The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-time – Mark Haddon

12] The Secret History – Donna Tartt

13] Princess – Jean Sasson

14] Calvin & Hobbes – Bill Watterson

15] Fairy Tales – Hans Christian Anderson

16] The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo trilogy – Stieg Larrson

17] A Heartbreaking Work Of Staggering Genius – Dave Eggers

18] Running With Scissors – Augusten Burroughs

19] Lorna Doone – R. D. Blackmore

20] An Unquiet Mind – Kay Redfield Jamison

21] The Little Prince – Antoine St Exupery

22] 1984 – George Orwell

23] You Shall Know Our Velocity – Dave Eggers

24] Girl With A Pearl Earring – Tracy Chevalier

25] The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath

26] The Perks Of Being A Wallflower – Stephen Chbosky

27] The Surgeon of Crowthorne – Simon Winchester

28] Bedlam – Dominic Bosco

29] Go Ask Alice – Anonymous

30] Lord of The Flies – William Golding

31] The Virgin Suicides – Jeffrey Eugenides

32] Interview with The Vampire – Anne Rice

33] The Tao of Pooh & The Te of Piglet – Benjamin Hoff

34] Misery – Stephen King

35] Othello – Shakespeare

36] The Hitchhikers’ Guide To The Galaxy series – Douglas Adams

37] The Hunger Games trilogy – Suzanne Collins

38] Daughters Of The Vicar – D.H. Lawrence

39] The Peter Principle – Peter & Hull

40] Harry Potter series – J. K. Rowling

41] The Time Traveler’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger

42] Alice in Wonderland – C. S. Lewis

43] The Magic Faraway Tree – Enid Blyton

44] Watchmen – Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons

45] Rabbit-proof Fence – Doris Pilkington

46] The Other Hand – Chris Cleave

47] The Witches – Roald Dahl

48] Geek Love – Katherine Dunn

49] The Blue Bedspread – Raj Khamal Jha

50] Blink – Malcolm Gladwell

51] The Point of Rescue – Sophie Hannah

52] Miss Smilla’s Feeling for Snow – Peter Hoeg

53] The Woman & The Ape – Peter Hoeg

54] The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks

55] The Dice Man – Luke Rhinehart

56] The First Stone – Helen Garner

57] Joe Cinque’s Consolation – Helen Garner

58] A Short History of Nearly Everything – Bill Bryson

59] Hurry Down Sunshine – Michael Greenberg

60] Tell Me I’m Here – Anne Deveson

61] My Lobotomy – Howard Dully

62] King Lear – Shakespeare

63] Nausea – Jean-Paul Sartre

64] Rosie Little’s Cautionary Tales for Girls – Danielle Wood

65] Prozac Nation – Elizabeth Wurtzel

66] The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini

67] We Need To Talk About Kevin – Lionel Shriver

68] Magical Thinking – Augusten Burroughs

69] The Trial of True Love – William Nicholson

70] Leila’s Secret – Kooshyar Karimi

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