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carriesouthard's review
3.0
I felt like this book could've been organized a little bit better so it made it a bit hard to read but I did get some good life tips out of it.
muirgenmonet's review
While I am I intrigued by some of his ideas and agree that a good attitude and positive thinking can improve your outlook and happiness sometimes I feel as if he over states his case or uses poor examples. To get specific, he talks about studies showing children who experience the death of a parent or divorce being just as happy as children who don’t. But what about children from abusive homes? There are plenty of studies that demonstrate poorer health outcomes in such situations, an increase in everything from asthma to IBS.
While I think the field certainly needs to be further explored I’m a little bit leery of an author who, for example, refers to protests against say, racial injustice as anger, when they are referring to anger in a negative light, rather than referring it to say, righteous indignation against injustice. Maybe I misunderstood the author, but it did leave a bad taste in my mouth enough to put the book down.
While I think the field certainly needs to be further explored I’m a little bit leery of an author who, for example, refers to protests against say, racial injustice as anger, when they are referring to anger in a negative light, rather than referring it to say, righteous indignation against injustice. Maybe I misunderstood the author, but it did leave a bad taste in my mouth enough to put the book down.
tintinintibet's review
4.0
Interesting -- researching happiness is something unexpected. I hear that these techniques are gaining some traction in the classroom, but less so in the workplace -- though I heard about this at work. See http://www.authentichappiness.com
chaosmavin's review against another edition
4.0
I have been making my way through the books out there on Positive Psychology...Marty Seligman is one of the pioneers of the field and this is one of his first major books. The book was written 2004 and only because I have read other books written in the last few years I will say some of the research referenced is dated...but not much. I think it is an excellent intro to positive Psychology and is chock full of tests and exercises. I listened to the audio book but that was more out of the functional need...if you really want to get the richness of the book I recommend buying a hard copy and ear marking exercises. My main interest in Positive psychology has been around character strength and while this book only devotes a section to it...I was fascinated to see how it has developed over the last 15 years. I think the book is easily digestible but it definitely asks a lot of someone who wants to embark on the journey...and I imagine some of what he says could be triggering for people who have experienced severe trauma or depression. If you are looking this one up and have never really dove into positive psychology I would suggest reading some articles or watching his Ted Talk before you commit to the book.