{"product_id":"9781921870149","title":"Quarterly Essay 41 The Happy Life: The Search for Contentment in the Modern World","description":"In the first Quarterly Essay for 2011, David Malouf returns to one of the most fundamental questions and gives it a modern twist: what makes for a happy life?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWith grace and profundity, Malouf discusses new and old ways to talk about contentment and the self. In considering the happy life – what it is, and what makes it possible – David Malouf returns to the “highest wisdom” of the classics, looks at how, thanks to Thomas Jefferson’s way with words, happiness became a “right”, and examines joy in the flesh as depicted by Rubens and Rembrandt. In a world become ever larger and impersonal, he finds happiness in an unlikely place. This is an essay to savour and reflect upon by one of Australia’s greatest novelists. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“How is it, when the chief sources of human unhappiness, of misery and wretchedness, have largely been removed from our lives … that happiness still eludes so many of us? … What is it in us, or in the world we have created, that continues to hold us back?” —David Malouf, \u003ci\u003eThe Happy Life\u003c\/i\u003e","brand":"Black Inc.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47137292976368,"sku":"9781921870149","price":17.01,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9781921870149_p0.jpg?v=1763632514","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9781921870149","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}