A brilliantly researched book that will transform how you think about happiness. Thomas Erikson, author of Surrounded by Idiots Among the nominees for suspense are Kristina Ohlsson’s Icebreaker, Hjorth & Rosenfeldt’s As You Sow, Jens Lapidus’ The No-Go Zone, Anders de la Motte & Måns Nilsson’s A House to Die For, Liza Marklund’s The Polar Circle, and Anders Roslund’s Trust Me.

One section I found interesting was where he summarized the factors that another survey found to contribute most strongly to people's reported well-being. This book is written by a journalist who had not so much a mid-life crisis but just more like a general slump feeling even when his life was going really well in mid-age (career accolades, happy marriage etc). Then miraculously at around late 40s early 50s he started feeling better, with nothing else really changing in his life. He wanted to investigate this phenomenon and it turns out that the research on happiness shows that cross culturally, even accounting for other factors such as income, gender, etc. there is a statistically significant "happiness curve" tied to age that has been demonstrated by big data sets of hundreds of thousands of people. On average, people will experience some level of "slump" feeling in mid-life though what constitutes mid-life in terms of age varies slightly from culture to culture. A similar phenomenon has been observed in apes as well. Basically there is evidence to suggest that this slump is to some degree biologically built into primates, but there are also cultural factors, and how each individual experiences it is going to vary considerably--some might have a full on 'mid life crisis,' some may feel a general feeling of malaise, and some may not feel it at all. Wisdom, he says, is balanced, reflective, active -- "the happiness curve is a social adaptation, a slow-motion reboot of our emotional software to repurpose us for a different role in society." Loneliness emerges as a critical theme, with compelling research demonstrating its detrimental effects on both mental and physical health. The impact of social media on loneliness is explored, revealing the perils of constant comparison and the distorted realities presented online.Why does happiness get harder in your 40s? Why do you feel in a slump when you’re successful? Where does this malaise come from? And, most importantly, will it ever end?

The best non-fiction is as easy and rewarding to read as the best fiction, it holds your interest, it focuses on facts in a way that makes it all that much more real, a visual, and maybe emotional experience. This was, for the most part, not a book I ever felt fully engaged in, and while it had some parts that were more compelling, it felt mired down by the way it was told. The Happiness Cure has been published in thirty-three countries, including the Brazil, Germany, Poland, Russia, China, Japan, and Turkey. He is the winner of the book of the year ‘Big Health Award 2017’ and Sweden’s Mensa Prize 2018. He has also received acclaim for his public speaking, notably a 2018 TED Talk, ‘Why the Brain is Built for Movement’.He added: “This feeling of pleasure is something that should be short-term, but we are fooled by advertising that we should experience it all the time. If you think that happiness is feeling good all the time, then you will be disappointed because we've not built that way.