Happiness is a source
This book is a wonderful confirmation of my 77 years on earth. I have given three copies to my psychology compatriates. The basis for happiness is located inside and as with humor, wonder and curiosity fed by our contained energy part. So watch the drains (also in others). Thanks to the author I have freed myself even more from the jealousy of others.
Pieter G. Kuipers,
Sneek, The Netherlands

Good book, somewhat interesting but poorly written
This book certainly introduces some central concepts which I found illuminating and useful. There are quite a few exercises ("time-ins") which everyone should do at some point in their life, if not regularily. I found some of these to be better than others whilst a few appeared to be there just for the sake of filling up space.

The writing itself is a little self-helpy which is something I couldn't quite get over. I would've liked to have more hard data and information to challenge me in my thinking around the topic. Much of the book is also repetative and I felt it was at times patronising.

It took a bit of concentration to get over the writing but once I focused on the topic at hand, I found the information quite illuminating.

All in all however, if you can get over the writing and into the crux of the topic, I think it's a very useful book and definitely worthy of a good read. Some of the exercises and meditations are useful and are things I would encourage any person to at least try.

No secrets revealed here
I bought this set of 4 cds to listen to on a long road trip, thinking to catch up on the latest popular course at Harvard. We really couldn't listen to them all--it was just too platitudinous and uninteresting. Sometimes people work hard for a goal and then discover that when they attain it they aren't joyous. Pure hedonism can't make you happy, though there are times when a little hedonism is a good thing. Think about the times when you were happy. What were they like? How about meditating a little every day? We were too bored to go on. Probably the point of the book could have been made in one lecture-length cd, but stretching it out to 4 didn't help, so if there is a 'secret' revealed in #4 we missed it.

Disappointing
I bought this book hoping for a primer on positive psychology. Instead, I got a self-help book which told me pretty much nothing new. A couple of the meditations in the last section were interesting, but overall this book was fairly disappointing.

Also, that whole bit about referring to happiness as the "ultimate currency?" The first time the author mentioned it, it was so stupid and corny I wanted to cry. The fact that it was mentioned again on practically every page from that point on really didn't help.

One good thing though - the author does spend a decent amount of time talking about Czikzhentmihalyi's concept of "flow," which everyone really should get familiar with at some point. It's nice to see it there, but it still doesn't justify buying this book.

I'll give this partial credit...
I read "Happier" over the Christmas holidays. It is an easy read, maybe even a bit simplistic in its day glo presentation. It is rooted in the "positive psychology" movement, based on a popular course at Harvard. The findings are hardly groundbreaking: happiness, the author contends, is a mixture of small pleasures in the moment and a sense of meaning in life overall. There are practical exercises ("time ins") in each chapter that should help you center your life around things you enjoy.

A few months after reading this book (I did most of the exercises), I am more focused on small pleasures and am feeling happier than I was. I have also maintained a 25 lb weight loss since the holidays, a first for me. I'm not giving all the credit to this book, but I think it's fair to say it might be one of the things that has helped me this year. This isn't the be all, end all pop psych book, but it's worth a read.