Christopher Bray
Christopher Bray is Cheered Up By Four Books on Happiness
Never have I felt more justified in my misery. A while back, you see, I had lunch with my agent. ‘So what’s your next book?’ asked he.
‘How about a socio-cultural history of the ways people have sought happiness? It’s so zeitgeisty it could make me a fortune.’
‘No way, Chris. We won’t be able to sell it.’
Oh yeah? Because here we are, a couple of years on, and what do I have in front of me? Four books being published almost simultaneously on the subject of happiness. Something tells me my take on the spiritless spirit of the age would have found an audience. I mean,
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
From the archive: Kenneth Rose on the life of Princess Alice of Battenberg
https://literaryreview.co.uk/she-trumped-them-all
'The trick of a successful mercenary ... was somehow to get on almost as well with your enemies as your allies, since those two positions could be reversed at dizzying speed.'
Sarah Dunant on the life of Federico da Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/scholar-in-arms
'McDormand has come closer to Lady Macbeth in some of her previous grimly comic performances ... Here she can convey only the banality of evil, as when she fussily curtails the banquet after Macbeth’s hallucination.'
https://literaryreview.co.uk/come-thick-night