Happiness

Rating:
Summary: What I learned on a Ant Hill.
Review: Happiness (Generica as I know it) by Canadian Author Will Ferguson was the book responsible for ending a long drought of unsatisfacory reading for myself. A definite GEM!
One of the only books to bring me to a loud laugh in public.
His characters are both very human and very funny. A sad but what I believe to be true scenario about how our industries pray and profit from human vices and weaknesses.
A must read!
A much better self help book than a self help book!

Rating:
Summary: The Love Song of Edwin de Valu
Review: Happiness by Will Ferguson is the story of ho-hum book editor Edwin Vincent de Valu and the self-help book he edits (or doesn't edit, as it were) that turns out the be THE self-help book and creates a "devastating plague of human happiness" that spreads to all who read it - with the exception of .3% (according to the marketing department). Edwin, of course, remains one of the .3ers and, after losing his wife (but having to keep the cat), his money, his home, his lover, and gaining a broken thumb, must make the quest to return the world to its former unhappy self.

Ferguson's style is witty and modern with a sly intellectual spin. Insightfully satirical and laugh-out-loud-in-the-doctor's-waiting-room funny, Happiness is an absolute "must read".

Rating:
Summary: Creative
Review: Happiness is a very creative novel. It chronicles the decline of civilization due to a self-help book that actually solves the worlds problems, and makes everyone happy. Will Ferguson's writing has improved dramatically since this book was written, but this is far and away the most clever book that he has written. The events are forced at times, and it shows all the trademarks of a first novel, but it is extremely amusing nonetheless. Certainly worthwhile for a light and original summer read!

Rating:
Summary: Creative
Review: Happiness is a very creative novel. It chronicles the decline of civilization due to a self-help book that actually solves the worlds problems, and makes everyone happy. Will Ferguson's writing has improved dramatically since this book was written, but this is far and away the most clever book that he has written. The events are forced at times, and it shows all the trademarks of a first novel, but it is extremely amusing nonetheless. Certainly worthwhile for a light and original summer read!

Rating:
Summary: Check your cynical, skeptical self at the door!
Review: Happiness(TM) is one of the funniest books I've read in quite some time! I enjoyed the romp even though the plausibility of it was a little far-fetched for my tastes. What it lacks in realism it more than makes up for in whismy and humor. There were some spots where my thoughts wandered, where Will Ferguson's Edwin left me cold or uninterested, but then Edwin would say or do something to shake me awake! Pull me out of my stupor and drag me back into the world of Tupak Soiree.

If you love to laugh, and enjoy a bitter, lost, confused, and even angry character with an attitude, then this book is for you! And if you don't like those traits, you'll probably love Tupak.....

Rating:
Summary: deserves a wedgie Dilbert's style
Review: He's got it right about that bunch of well-meaning platitudes that constitute most of self-help books,of which it has been said that many of them convey the same message: it's all right to be selfish ( or to be a shell-fish).But the protagonist is really a sour cantankerous being dissatisfied of anyone which isn't sharing his dour mood. He has annoyed me after the first 20 pages. Will got it all wrong. Happiness is not being satisfied by your own mediocrity, but working out a better method of living whit your fellow humans, always trying to better the world and yourself! Will Ferguson thinks the protagonist's dour mood is the correct view of life? Well, he is as deluded as the author of "What I learned on the mountain" !

Rating:
Summary: Brilliant
Review: I found a virgin copy of Happiness in the seat pocket in front of me on a airplane. Curious, I opened it...and never put it down (until I finished it of course). While this book is hiliarious, it's much more than just funny. Ferguson is a first-rate satirist. If you don't like this book you should get help (self-help, that is. Read the book and you'll get this joke).

Rating:
Summary: Couldn't put it down
Review: I generally have several books going at once, but I gobbled this one up in a weekend. Will Ferguson cleverly makes fun of authors, publishers and readers alike.

Rating:
Summary: Happiness when the book ends
Review: I was snowed in and wanted to read a book that would make me laugh. I thought this would be it. It has a good story line that I enjoyed but it was inhibited by Ferguson's attempts to find faults with self-help books which resulted in something very close to his own version of a self help book mingled into his story line. Not that some of his advice wasn't insightful only that it was not what was expected. I kept getting fusterated when some of his "almost preachy" moments interfered with the story line. As long has you understand that the balance of the book is 50% self-help and 50% story you won't be disapointed.

Rating:
Summary: this book must be banned!!!
Review: i watch a cbc talk show with survivors of trungpa in halifax, in mass denial as they NEVER mention that trungpa was at best a burned out alcoholic, at worst a raving psychopath whose successor intentionally spread hiv to the group; i read that sai baba, the guru of indian gurus, has multi accusations against him of sexually abusing young boys; and then with this disservice to humanity - happiness tm... mr. ferguson has destroy any semblance of hope. he must be a goddamn generation xer.
but alas even mr.ferguson, who was allowed to graduate from some screen writing school, has written this book as an easy convert to screenplay, even adding in the sappy happy ending for hollywood.
stop this book before it becomes a movie and really messes up minds.
and btw Will, THANKS FOR MAKING ME LAUGH ME F...ING ASS OFF while reading this terrific, must buy, must read book!!!

upton n. atom
author - just a mulligan stew ([e-mail])