IGGPPC : Iggle BookWorms discussion

Use this board to discuss your choices for the Read Harder challenge!

I read Happier at Home: How I Learned to Pay Attention, Cram My Day with What I Love, Hold More Tightly, Embrace Here, and Remember Now.
I really enjoyed this book, a clear, well thought out glimpse into the workings of somebody else's mind. Gretchen Rubin's is articulate, the book follows a clear pattern and narrative, and her philosophical and introspective view on the world leads to some sound truths.
However, I wouldn't class this book as "self-improvement", its more a memoir of one self improving. A lot of the insights Gretchen comes up with are self explanatory and already time honored cliches but Gretchen backs them up with scientific research and tries them out for herself and details her findings for the reader.
You also need to be aware when picking this up that Gretchen is starting from a positive place. That's not to say she has never suffered any form of pain or hardship (this book really doesn't look into that) but she's married, her husband is a lawyer, she has two healthy children and she's a white American woman with a decent income - in fact she's actually an "under-buyer". When Gretchen wants to explore her sense of smell she orders a selection of Demeter Fragrance. Intrigued I went to look this up and found that here in the UK a sample sized bottle is £15 each from Boots, so that immediately crossed that experiment off my list. When Gretchen wants to have one on one adventures with her child they arrange trips to museums - at £18 per adult plus train and babysitting costs for my other child a trip to The Deep is not on the horizon. And when Gretchen wants to shoulder some marital responsibility she takes driving lessons (despite the fact she can already drive) - at £20 per hour plus the cost of running another car that is not going to be going on the to-do list.
However, the above comment is a little unfair to Gretchen who knows how lucky she is and who mentions several times throughout the book that a happiness project is personal, this is just the chronicle of her own. We all know its a good idea to spend one-on-one time with our children, if that means spending an hour in the garden or at the park its just as valid a memory as trailing round Bloomingdale's. I just wanted to be clear that if you were picking up this book as a guide on how to become happier because you were going through a rough time put it back on the shelf and come back to it when you are already in a reasonably positive frame of mind. Rubin's tips will help you to focus on how to enhance your own happiness and give you food for thought about some deeper issues of self and home but it's not going to help you if you are clinically depressed.
An engaging and thought provoking read.