Happiness is a page away.
Okay, it’s not that simple. Reading books on happiness won’t automatically make you happier.
However, they can help you define happiness, reframe what it means for your life, and shift your focus to pursue it.
Maybe reading a book really can make you happier.
The Best Books on Happiness
Image Credit: kinn_studio via Shutterstock.com.
As a happiness life coach, I’ve read my fair share of books on the subject, and I can help you find the perfect volume to explore your own version of a happy life.
One of these wonderful books on happiness can teach you how to be happy, regardless of where you are now.
Hey folks! Transparency Disclosure- Some of the links in this article are affiliate links. That means I’ll receive a small commission if you decide to click on it and buy something. Don’t worry, it doesn’t cost you anything extra!
The How of Happiness: A New Approach to Getting the Life You Want – Sonja Lyubomirsky
In The How of Happiness, Lyubomirsky breaks finding happiness down into actionable steps. She draws on decades of psychology research, plus her own independent research as a social psychologist who spent her entire career studying human happiness.
My favorite thing about The How of Happiness is that Lyubomirsky realizes finding happiness isn’t a “one-size-fits-all” process. Everyone’s brain works a little differently, so there’s no one strategy to being happier that fits us all.
Instead, Lyubomirsky emphasizes self-awareness. She outlines 12 unique strategies for cultivating a happier life and helps readers identify which one might work well for them.
Happiness, the book argues, isn’t a personality trait or a destination—it’s a skill that can be practiced and sustained.
Hierarchy of Needs: A Theory of Human Motivation – Abraham Maslow
If you’ve read my articles on happiness, you know I’m a huge fan of Maslow. His hierarchy of needs speaks to me, and I use it to help others find happiness in their own lives.
That’s why I recommend reading about it from the source.
Image credit: PegasuStudio via Shutterstock.com.
In Hierarchy of Needs, Maslow introduces the idea that to find happiness, you must first fulfill your unmet needs. He says it’s impossible to be truly happy if you’re starving or lack self-esteem.
I love this theory because it’s realistic. Society loves platitudes like “money can’t buy happiness,” but Maslow highlights that mindset alone isn’t it. Humans do need some basic things to be happy, and ignoring that ultimate truth harms folks seeking a happier life.
The Happiness Trap: How to Stop Struggling and Start Living – Russ Harris
Harris wants you to stop trying so hard to be happy. Not that happiness isn’t a worthy pursuit, but most of us go about it the wrong way.
We want so badly to be happy that we actually hinder our happiness by trying to force it. The Happiness Trap helps with that. In it, Harris highlights that negative events are a part of life and trying to avoid them isn’t the answer.
Instead, he teaches us to accept the bad with the good, but shift our focus from “avoiding the bad” to embracing the true meaning of happiness through our personal values.
The idea is very similar to The Art of Happiness, but based in psychology (mostly Acceptance and Commitment Therapy) rather than spirituality.
Authentic Happiness: Using the New Positive Psychology to Realize Your Potential for Lasting Fulfillment – Martin Seligman
What even is happiness?
Seligman has an idea, and it’s probably not what you think. But it is kind of what Maslow thought.
In Authentic Happiness, Seligman focuses on the top two layers of Maslow’s pyramid, taking Maslow’s ideas to their natural conclusion with empirical evidence and real-world data (He doesn’t actually mention Maslow, but I can’t help but think about the pyramid when I read Authentic Happiness).
Seligman highlights the different experiences we all lump together as happiness, like pleasure and engagement, and a sense of purpose, and shares the real secrets to lasting fulfilment.
The book combines research, exercises, and practical advice to help readers move beyond fleeting happiness and toward a life that feels genuinely satisfying.
Flourish – Martin Seligman
Seligman expands on the ideas he presented in his 2002 Authentic Happiness in 2011 with Flourish, where he introduces the PERMA (Positive emotion, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning, and Accomplishment) model for a fulfilling life.
He claims these five elements build the foundation for lasting happiness.
Where Authentic Happiness is more subjective, Flourish relies on data, like research and case studies, to help people thrive in all aspects of their lives. He even explores how communities can foster collective well-being, a crucial part of overall wellness that’s often ignored.
The Happiness Handbook – Dr. Ken Harmon and Ashley Harmon-Poston
Is happiness a skill that can be developed? Dr. Ken Harmon and Ashley Harmon-Poston think so, and in The Happiness Handbook, they will teach you how.
This iconic book about happiness focuses primarily on how your mindset determines your happiness – and helps you shift your mindset for a happier life.
The co-authors don’t waste a lot of space on data, instead opting for exercises and prompts to guide people towards the shift they’re encouraging. It will help you notice your negative thought patterns and shift your perspective, building the happiness skill they claim everyone can cultivate.
The Art of Happiness: A Handbook for Living – Dalai Llama and Howard Cutler
The Art of Happiness by the Dalai Lama and Howard Cutler blends Buddhist philosophy with modern psychology to explore happiness as an internal skill rather than an external achievement.
Through conversations and real-life examples, the book argues that lasting happiness comes from training the mind—cultivating compassion, managing destructive emotions, and developing emotional resilience.
Photo Credit: 360b via Shutterstock.com.
My favorite aspect of The Art of Happiness is that it doesn’t ignore the harsh realities of life. It doesn’t promote toxic positivity; instead, it teaches us how to respond to the negatives with empathy and build the resilience we need to accept that life is hard sometimes and find happiness despite it.
The Happiness Project – Gretchen Rubin
Gretchen Rubin doesn’t just talk about finding happiness – she lives it!
Her book, The Happiness Project, chronicles her year-long experiment to systemically increase her own happiness. She tested a range of theories, incorporated them into her own life, and recorded whether she felt happier or not.
Of course, every good scientist knows you can’t test multiple variables at once, so Rubin focused on a different major theme each month, recording what she did to improve her happiness and how it worked for her.
The Happiness Project is mostly anecdotal, but Rubin’s engaging writing style and real-world experience make it an inspirational choice for those who love firsthand accounts and need more happiness in their lives.
The Power of Positive Thinking – Norman Vincent Peale
Can optimism really boost your happiness? Peale thinks so, and in his book The Power of Positive Thinking, he shares how self-belief, hope, and confidence can lead people to happier lives.
The Power of Positive Thinking was one of the first books to promote practical techniques like affirmation, visualization, and positive thought as secret ingredients for wellness and to claim that mindset affects your life.
Although most modern books about happiness promote these same themes, there’s something to be said about reading the original, even if it feels a little dated at times.
Loving What Is: Four Questions that Can Change Your Life – Byron Katie
What is really causing your unhappiness? Is it the events happening around you, or is it the constant barrage of negative thoughts and anxiety playing on repeat in your head?
Katie argues it’s the latter. In Loving What Is, she claims that most of our unhappiness comes from our constant stream of stressful thoughts rather than the actual things that happen and presents a process for letting go of them.
Part of the genius is in the simplicity. It’s just four basic questions identifying the thought, exploring its truth, defining how it impacts your life, and imagining how things could be different. It’s designed to help you challenge assumptions and cultivate a more curious mindset.
The Art of Letting Go: Stop Overthinking, Stop Negative Spirals, and Find Emotional Freedom (The Path to Calm) – Nick Trenton
The Art of Letting Go has a similar thesis to Loving What Is; they both claim that overthinking prevents happiness.
But where Loving What Is takes a simplistic, one-size-fits-all approach, The Art of Letting Go goes deeper with ideas drawn from psychology, mindfulness, and cognitive techniques. It offers a number of tools, like thought defusion, emotional labeling, and attention control, to help readers interrupt invasive thoughts.
Trenton guides you toward a calm foundation with pragmatic advice and easy strategies that anyone can apply.
Although it’s not technically about finding happiness, it’s about calming your mind, which is an essential first step to cultivating a happier life.
The Happiness Hypothesis – Jonathan Haidt
We typically look to psychologists to help us find happiness, but Haidt has a different approach.
He looks to anthropology.
In The Happiness Hypothesis, Haidt looks at happiness through both ancient wisdom and modern psychology, comparing ideas from Buddhism and Confucianism to contemporary research to develop a framework of what happiness means.
He discovered that it’s not as simple as we think. It’s not internal or external, emotional or rational, psychological or anthropological. It’s a mix of everything.
Haidt argues that happiness stems from aligning your internal life with your external one, highlighting that both mindset and circumstances are crucial for a fulfilling life.
Solve For Happy – Mo Gawdat
The practical mind might want to find a formula for happiness, and Gawdat delivers.
Of course, it’s not as simple as X+Y=happy, but Gawdat does use his engineering background to frame happiness as a logical equation rather than an abstract feeling. And if happiness is an equation, you can tweak the variables to increase it.
But the variables aren’t what you expect. It’s about adjusting your expectations, not your inputs. Some may find the approach overly simplistic or reductive, but it’s helpful for people who need something concrete that they can hold onto.
The Many Faces of Happiness: Inspiring Stories on What Makes People Happy – Elisabeth Oosterhoff
The biggest secret I’ve learned about happiness is that it’s different for everyone. That’s why so many books about happiness fail – they set a one-size-fits-all approach that doesn’t work.
And that’s what makes The Many Faces of Happiness unique. Oosterhoff doesn’t claim there’s a step-by-step framework you can follow for a happier life, or share practical exercises for cultivating happiness.
Photo Contributor
sulit.photos via Shutterstock.com.
Instead, she talks to real people from all over the world about what makes them happy. The real-life accounts show that happiness comes from hundreds of sources, some unexpected.
Although those looking for a formula for happiness might be disappointed, I find the many paths to happiness inspirational. My happiness isn’t the same as yours, and that’s okay.
Happier: Learn the Secrets to Daily Joy and Lasting Fulfillment – Tal Ben-Shahar
Harvard professor Ben-Shahar brings his course to your living room with practical guidance for cultivating long-term well-being.
Okay, it’s not the course because it’s far more accessible, offering actionable advice for balancing pleasure with meaning to create a fulfilling life.
In Happier, Ben-Shahar argues that happiness comes from living intentionally, not chasing pleasure on the hedonistic treadmill. He blends theory with exercises and personal anecdotes to encourage gratitude, mindfulness, compassion, and resilience through small, meaningful changes in your daily life.
My favorite part is the emphasis on self-reflection, because as we learned above, happiness is different for everyone. Ben-Shahar helps you discover what works best for you.
Happiness: A Guide to Developing Life’s Most Important Skill – Matthieu Ricard
Like the Happiness Handbook, Happiness: A Guide to Developing Life’s Most Important Skill argues that happiness is a skill that can be cultivated rather than a fleeting feeling or a mindset.
Ricard’s hypothesis stems from his life experience; he’s both a Buddhist monk and a neuroscientist, so like Haidt, he takes both a spiritual and scientific approach. But he believes the skill can be cultivated by training your mind in an active, ongoing practice.
Although there’s not a lot of practical, actionable advice in Happiness, it reinforces the idea that intentionally cultivating a fulfilling life (rather than chasing an emotional high) is the secret to lasting happiness.
You Can Buy Happiness (and It’s Cheap): How One Woman Radically Simplified Her Life and How You Can Too – Tammy Strobel
Will the bigger house, fancy sports car, and name-brand clothes make you happier?
Probably not, but how do you know?
You don’t have to know. Strobel tested the theory for you in You Can’t Buy Happiness by getting rid of all (well, most of) her stuff and focusing on the things that really matter.
But it’s not really about ditching all of your possessions. It’s about freedom from all the distractions that hinder our well-being.
Strobel encourages readers to examine their lives and determine what truly brings them joy versus what drains their energy. When you do this, you can prioritize the things you love and ditch the things you don’t really care about.
Present Over Perfect: Leaving Behind Frantic for a Simpler, More Soulful Way of Living -Shauna Niequist
Perfection is the enemy of progress, and progress is crucial to happiness.
In Present Over Perfect, Niequest argues that our obsession with being busy, being perfect, and exceeding everyone’s expectations harms our happiness. She encourages readers to let go of perfectionist ideas and to just be instead.
The book is perfect for people who feel overwhelmed with life’s constantly increasing demands and need permission to slow down and make room for themselves. When you do that, you can find fulfillment in the small things.
Eat Pray Love – Elizabeth Gilbert
Eat Pray Love doesn’t typically make the list of books about happiness, but at its core, that’s what it is.
In it, Gilbert shares her authentic truth. She was miserable living a life she didn’t want and terrified of making an even bigger mistake. So she took a massive chance, changed her life, and pursued the things she really wanted.
Photo Credit: Olezzo via Shutterstock.com.
Through it all, she found happiness.
What might her story inspire you to try?
What’s Your Favorite Book about Happiness?
Image credit: thanya via Shutterstock.com.
I need more books to share with my Passion Fire Book Club. What is your favorite book about finding happiness, and why should I include it on the list?
