Discussion Leader: Dr. Christy Buchanan
A Harvard law grad spends his life working for the poor and falsely accused on death row or imprisoned for life. He tells the stories of these people, as well as his work toward equitable justice. The book illuminates who gets to pursue happiness in America, the value and meaning of happiness as a primary pursuit, and what might bring happiness and meaning to life.
I am a Professor of Psychology. More specifically, I am a developmental psychologist who studies adolescent and young adult development, with a special focus on family influences and civic development.
Choosing a college: one of the hardest decisions you had to make in the last year. Now that you’re “in” (Welcome to Wake!) the need to make crucial decisions, sometimes at the drop of a hat, only intensifies. Designing Your Life, a bestseller by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans, proposes a new way to think about approaching college and life decisions with intention. This book is not a guide for what decisions to make, nor does it dictate what a “joyful life” must contain. Instead, it offers one model for being strategic – and creative – in approaching big and small choices in college and beyond. I look forward to discussing “design thinking” with you!
In a 75-year study, researchers at Harvard found that the single most important influence on our health and happiness is the quality of our relationships. These psychologists confirm what philosophers have long held: that we become who we are, in part, because of our friends. Making friends is an especially important part of college, yet we rarely stop to think about how to develop and maintain meaningful relationships in our increasingly technological age. How do we choose our friends? How do we make new friends while maintaining relationships with older friends? How do we relate to a friend who has done something wrong? How do we develop friendships that improve our character rather than corrupt it? These questions animate How to Be a Friend, one of history’s most famous meditations on friendship. Written for one of his own friends, Cicero’s brief dialogue offers fundamental insights on friendship, virtue, and happiness that are as relevant today as they were in ancient Rome.
You might have arrived at Wake Forest happy: eager to learn, but fairly certain there are certain things you can be certain of. But then you meet your roommate, or take that philosophy class, or see the landscape around you, and you wonder…
Did you read The Fault in our Stars or Paper Towns in high school? Are you a John Green fan? Like all Green’s books, his latest work Turtles All The Way Down uses wit and compassion to cast light on serious topics, in this case, the multiple anxiety disorders of our protagonist, Aza, and how this all influences how she ultimately defines and finds happiness. That would be enough for most authors, but Green also addresses issues of class, privilege and character.
The Dalai Lama & Desmond Tutu offer us reflections on their lives and how they have been able to discover a level of peace, courage, and joy to which we can all aspire. Through this book we get to listen as they explore the Nature of True Joy and confront each of the Obstacles of Joy—from fear, stress, and anger to grief, illness, and death. They then offer us Eight Pillars of Joy, which provide the foundation for lasting happiness. Throughout, they include stories, wisdom, and science and share the daily Joy Practices that anchor their emotional and spiritual lives.
The Alchemist is a worldwide bestseller. It is a short-but-sweet fable that tells the story of Santiago, a shepherd boy from Spain who travels the world in search of a great treasure. Santiago’s journey teaches us about the search for happiness, how to listen to your heart, how to read the omens that life presents us, and the importance of following our dreams.
We put a lot of energy into being happy, don’t we? So what happens when the one thing that brought you the most happiness no longer works? What happens when the relationships and people who brought you joy are gone or far away? Do friendship and loyalty bring you happiness or something else? As you embark of your Wake Forest journey, where will you find happiness? How will you find your happiness here, when it might not feel like home? This book tells the story of a town, a hockey team, and a community that is rattled by a terrible event, and how people learn to find happiness in the face of tradegy and disappointment. It’s not all sad and it’s not all about sports! It’s just an honest story, with complex characters, exploring the search for happiness when everything has changed.
How much material wealth do you need to be happy? In this book, Dr. Kasser examines the question of whether being driven by material concerns affects your happiness–and he finds that it does. In fact, he finds that if your values center on wealth and possessions then you are at higher risk of several mental health issues and your happiness is likely to be negatively impacted. Take this opportunity to learn about the science behind materialism and (un)happiness, and to think about how you can change your values to improve your chance of long term happiness!
How can we be happy in a society so afflicted by lovelessness? What if love-as-romance is thinking about it all wrong? In this book, renowned scholar and intersectional feminist 
This book is not about science. I have no affinity to science and I loved this book. It’s a book about a famous academic scientist, Hope Jahren, and why she became a student of nature. It’s about she and her best friend and lab partner trying to make inroads with sometimes wayward college students. The book reveals how the author finds happiness and a sanctuary in science, amongst the trials of every day life including depression and running out of money. It’s full of truths she finds along the way, including, “my lab is like a church because it is where I figure out what I believe.”
Journey. Expedition. Odyssey. The pursuit of happiness is as much about traveling along a pathway as it is about the destination. Into the Wild is the story of an individual’s pursuit of happiness in the form of a travel memoir. After graduating from Emory University in 1991, freethinker Christopher McCandless embarks on a personal, spiritual, and harrowing trek through the Alaska wilderness to invent a new life for himself. In his nomadic journey and ultimate death, McCandless details the seeking, yearning voice of a traveler in search of something more than the world can offer him.
Does positivity ever get you down, seem hollow, or feel like a scam? If so, this book may be for you. But it is so much more than a self-help guide for sceptics, cynics, and contrarians. Burkeman argues that by trying to be happy, we often make ourselves miserable. He sees modern culture’s approach to happiness as misconceived and counterproductive, and explores ancient theories of the human condition that allow him to offer a thoughtful critique of today’s pervasive ideology of optimism.
Why would a parent engage in cheating during the college admissions process? Why would a high achieving teenager seriously consider not going to college? What’s the point of a college education anyway? This comic play examines the college admissions pressures placed on a high school student and also takes a closer look at the adults in her life who have lost their way in their pursuit of happiness. 
What if the most simple changes in your life could bring you additional happiness…would you do it? Yes, of course you would. The author examines little changes that she makes during a twelve month period of her life as part of a happiness project. Time is an important commodity, and that should be spent wisely. I think your time will be well spent reading this book during the summer.
Finding lasting happiness might be simpler than we think and well within our reach. Through inspiring stories and techniques like thought-modification and relationship-building, you can gain insight into what it means to be happy despite challenging circumstances that will inevitably come your way.
In Chemistry by Weike Wang, we meet a narrator midway through her PhD in Chemistry, who has become completely disconnected from her ability to experience joy. Distanced from her life and her former passions, she has become stuck, unable to move forward, trapped between the inability to meet the expectations of others and the inability to articulate what she truly wants for herself. So instead of addressing the question of what the pursuit of happiness looks like, I’ve chosen this book as a place to examine what happens when we become unmoored from our ability to pursue happiness.
Two-time National Book Award Winner and MacArthur genius award recipient, Jesmyn Ward has distinguished herself as one of the greatest living American writers. Informed by her experience growing up as a black woman in Mississippi, her most recent novel 
Published in 1856, Madame Bovary was the debut novel of Gustave Flaubert and is to this day considered on of the most influential literary works in history. Emma Bovary is the original “Desperate Housewife”. This book tells the story of a woman bored in her marriage and tired of small town life. 
Marriage is supposed to be the beginning of “happily ever after.” So what do we do when it’s not? This novel is about a marriage pressured by injustice (when the husband is wrongfully arrested), loneliness (when the wife is left to carry on without him), and desire (when the wife turns to the husband’s best friend for comfort). 
What do you and a bitter Swedish curmudgeon have in common? A lot more than you think! This hilarious, well-written, and bestselling novel (beautifully translated from Swedish) explores how transitions and interactions with others – including an annoying stray cat – shape our lives in unexpected ways. I’m really looking forward to an entertaining discussion about how relationships, community, and new experiences can influence our own personal happiness. 
How can the pursuit of happiness motivate and drive us to succeed? Do privilege and material circumstances determine or define our ability to pursue happiness? These central questions are at the heart of Michelle Obama’s Becoming, which she explores through the lens of growing up in the South Side of Chicago, pursuing degrees at Princeton and Harvard, developing a successful career in law and hospital administration, and becoming the First Lady of the United States. Of all the many career “hats” she has worn, Obama’s book shows that she grounds her ambition in her family values, which overall are central to her happiness.
The Danish people come out in study after study as the happiest people in the world. How can this be? Is it really true? What do people who live in a small, cold country and eat so much pickled herring know or do that works so well? Is there anything we can learn from them? 
Sonja is one of the leading figures in the science of happiness. This book applies empirical research to correct common misconceptions on the causes of happiness that are widely accepted in today’s culture. Here’s the blurb for the book: