If there is a point to having Ph.D. programs produce philosophers, it might just be books like this. Kingwell, who teaches at the University of Toronto, has written quite an engaging rumination on the idea, the subject, the concept of happiness. He writes well and fluidly: his supple use of language and his occasionally laugh-out-loud wit keep one with him, chapter after chapter. Kingwell tackles happiness from many vantage points: he deconstructs one of those happiness-is-a-choice seminars; takes Prozac for awhile (this is pretty scary); analyzes the state of cool, advertising, and envy. Along the way he quotes with easy familiarity everyone from Aristotle and Boethius to Ursula Le Guin and Calvin Trillin. Sometimes he's irritating--he completely misunderstands the Star Trek universe and quotes approvingly from the catalog-card-carrying Nicholson Baker--but he's spent a lot of time trying to elucidate a concept all of us talk about but few take the time to think about clearly. --GraceAnne A. DeCandido

Smoothly splicing together personal narrative, philosophical inquiry and historical analysis, young Canadian academic and frequent Harper's contributor Kingwell (Dreams of Millennium) deconstructs popular conceptions of happiness and presents an invigorating alternative vision of the good life in this witty and incisive cultural critique. Kicking off his personal pursuit of felicity with a week-long stint at a happiness seminar in western Massachusetts, Kingwell plays guinea pig in a caustic examination of the self-realization industry. In another amateur experiment, he locates a month's supply of ProzacÄhe is not depressed, and the drug has not been prescribedÄand doses himself, investigating the pharmaceutical approach to happiness. Though these two episodes make for amusing storytelling, the insight they yield is slight. It is Kingwell's more abstract reasoning on consumer cultureÄin selling happiness, advertising actually manufactures unhappiness; in urging self-affirmation, therapeutic programs push empty solutionsÄthat succeeds best. Looking to Plato's The Republic, Boethius's The Consolation of Philosophy and Epictetus's Enchiridion for inspiration from the longest-lived happiness manuals, Kingwell, like the ancients, finally concludes that happiness is not a life of hedonistic abandon but rather one of eudaemonistic fulfillment: "the possession of virtuous character and the performance of virtuous action." Grandiose as this may sound, Kingwell wears his learning lightly, and his spirited defense of the life worth living is marred only by an occasional smugness of tone. Riding a wave of Jerome Kern lyrics, rehashed personal gossip and analysis of the movie Shall We Dance, he coasts home on the story of his own struggle for happiness as a junior scholar angling for tenure. (July) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

In keeping with a number of books that have appeared recently, including Lou Marinoff's Plato, Not Prozac! (HarperCollins, 1999), Kingwell (philosophy, Univ. of Toronto) here uses philosophical methods to examine the fundamental underpinning of human endeavors: the idea of happiness. In this fascinating and superbly written book, Kingwell delves into how happiness, with all its variant definitions, is an element in every part of our lives. His introductory analysis of the concept of happiness, even as defined in current popular music, provides an excellent grounding for his later discussion. He takes particular note of eight myths that surround happiness, including the myth that it can be bought, that it is immoral, and that it is a birthright. Combining his own personal experiences, investigation into historical views of happiness, and, of course, some good, solid philosophical analysis and reflection, Kingwell has created a book of a type that we desperately need: intelligently and thoughtfully written, with a sound basis in philosophical method, on an important yet often poorly examined topic, and with a worthy goal. Recommended for all libraries.DTerry Skeats, Bishop's Univ. Lib., Lennoxville, Quebec (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.