This book carries the ambitious subtitle “52 Simple Shortcuts
to Happiness”. When I
see such a title in a book shop, I usually look away and don’t touch it. The
book may fit well in a typical American book store. People may believe I can’t
manage my own life and I may need help.
I had
however heard at work of the author Rolf Dobelli and his first book “The Art of
Thinking Clearly”. When you open the book, you notice the chapters are short
and beautifully illustrated with colourful drawings. It contains a lot of
simple but wise advice and it easily invites to further reading.
The book is
written from a ‘high society’ perspective and some examples given may not appeal
to everyone. With some of the 52 recommendations, you might even disagree, but
I bet most people will agree with at least 48 out of 52 recommendations. I discovered that the joy of reading is also related to the fact that you were
already aware of some of the pitfalls of postmodern life and you might even
have taken measures already to overcome them.
You will
find some of these pitfalls/ recommendations in previous blogs “The
Delusion of Immanent Justice”, “Status
Anxiety”, “Meritocracy”,
“On
Optimism and Pessimism”.
