cover image Are You Happy?: Some Answers to the Most Important Question in Your Life

Are You Happy?: Some Answers to the Most Important Question in Your Life

. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH), $0 (312pp) ISBN 978-0-395-40779-0

The TV talk-show host offers a second self-help guide, in the spirit of The Courage to Change, this time exploring the elusive quality of happiness. The text consists of interviews with 44 prominent men and women in publishing, medicine, the performing arts, the ministry and the U.S. Congress, among them Harold Kushner, Benjamin Spock, Gloria Steinem, Theodore Issac Rubin. The respondents' definitions of happiness are grouped under such headings as love/work/hope, spirituality, health, etc. Performers Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee, for example, believe they have been happily married for 37 years because they are friends. Stressing the blessings of family life, several of the respondents' answers exemplify the need for relationships based on mutual trust and sharing. There are also provocative opinions on unhappiness and its causes. Author tour. (November 24)