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Kiss More, Jump More, Abandon Self-Control, and My Other Experiments in Everyday Life
by Gretchen Rubin
In the spirit of her blockbuster #1 New York Times bestseller The Happiness Project, Gretchen Rubin embarks on a new project to make home a happier place.
One Sunday afternoon, as she unloaded the dishwasher, Gretchen Rubin felt hit by a wave of homesickness. Homesick - why? She was standing right in her own kitchen. She felt homesick, she realized, with love for home itself. "Of all the elements of a happy life," she thought, "my home is the most important." In a flash, she decided to undertake a new happiness project, and this time, to focus on home.
And what did she want from her home? A place that calmed her, and energized her. A place that, by making her feel safe, would free her to take risks. Also, while Rubin wanted to be happier at home, she wanted to appreciate how much happiness was there already.
So, starting in September (the new January), Rubin dedicated a school year - September through May - to making her home a place of greater simplicity, comfort, and love.
In The Happiness Project, she worked out general theories of happiness. Here she goes deeper on factors that matter for home, such as possessions, marriage, time, and parenthood. How can she control the cubicle in her pocket? How might she spotlight her family's treasured possessions? And it really was time to replace that dud toaster.
Each month, Rubin tackles a different theme as she experiments with concrete, manageable resolutions - and this time, she coaxes her family to try some resolutions, as well.
With her signature blend of memoir, science, philosophy, and experimentation, Rubin's passion for her subject jumps off the page, and reading just a few chapters of this book will inspire readers to find more happiness in their own lives.
Reader's Guide
Excerpt
Gretchen Rubin's Happiness Manifesto
You can see the full discussion in our legacy forum here. This discussion will contain spoilers!
Some of the recent comments posted about Happier at Home:
[Couples] "who look the most alike report the happiest marriages."
I'm not sure, I definitely know couples that are very similar in those areas, but the majority of couples I know are different in big ways. My brother and sister in law are opposite ends of the political spectrum, and my parents' close friends are ... - mystinamarie
Being older
When you get older, its the small things that count. Smelling a babys head, wildflowers, starry nights, a hug when you need it. - carmen s
Did reading this book make you want to try one of the resolutions? Which one?
I will try to be a little nicer to my spouse. I let my husband read some of the points but I don't think they took. I liked the resolution a kiss at night and a kiss in the morning. - carmen s
Do like some of the author's ideas.
I think the author's ideas are interesting. For me personally, they were hard to relate to and I found this book a difficult read at first. Once I just appreciated that it was a very detailed look into someone else's thinking, I could read it more ... - ssh
Do you agree that clutter affects your happiness?
Absolutely. I find that a cluttered home leads to a cluttered mind--one that is preoccupied and less focused than usual. My Mom always used to say " a place for everything and everything in its place". I didn't understand that clearly as a child but ... - candaceb
"...This perceptive sequel offers elegant musings about the nature of happiness combined with concrete ways to make the place where we sleep, eat, and watch TV truly a home." - Publishers Weekly
"With her characteristic mix of delightful charm, thoughtful research, and insightful advice, In Happier at Home Gretchen Rubin shows how to add fun, joy, and harmony to your home life. As usual with Rubin's work, I couldn't put this book down." - Susan Cain, New York Times bestselling author of Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking
"Gretchen Rubin's inventive approach to creating a happier home life is as inspiring as it is informative." - Cheryl Strayed, bestselling author of Wild
"In her brilliantly insightful book Happier at Home, Gretchen Rubin shows how small changes can make a big difference to our everyday happiness. What better place to start than in our own homes?" - Chris Guillebeau, author of The Art of Non-Conformity, and The $100 Startup: Reinvent the Way You Make a Living, Do What You Love, and Create a New Future
"It's a rare book that inspires personal change and takes you on a rollicking adventure through history and into the minds of great thinkers. I'm grateful for Gretchen Rubin's work." - Brené Brown, Ph.D. Author of #1 New York Times bestselling book, Daring Greatly: How the Courage to be Vulnerable Transforms the Way we Live, Love, Parent, and Lead
"In Happier at Home, Gretchen Rubin brilliantly shows us how to create an environment that embraces the people and the things that give us a sense of comfort, tranquility, and joy." -Harlan Coben, bestselling author of Six Years and Stay Close
"Rubin's warm, doable and sweet tips seem small when you check them off one by one. But the advice, added together, is a big ball of happy... Every mom will find gems in this book." - Parents.com
This information about Happier at Home was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Gretchen Rubin is the author of several books, including the blockbuster #1 New York Times bestseller The Happiness Project. Rubin started her career in law and was clerking for Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor when she realized that she really wanted to be a writer. Raised in Kansas City, she lives in New York City with her husband and two daughters.
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