"In my experience,the two things humans want most are to find happiness and to find meaning,"Izzo writes.In this ready-made spiritual quest,the business consultant and ordained Presbyterian minister interviewed more than 200 people from ages 60 to 106.The answers they received led him and his team to the belief that there are five secrets to happiness.Izzo's interviewees were selected after relatives and friends submitted their names as wise people with something to teach.The list was narrowed from 1,000 names to a diverse group that includes men and women,Muslims and Christians,doctors,barbers,priests,and aboriginal people. Throughout the book,Izzo presents each lesson with heartfelt responses and anecdotes from these wise elders to illustrate how living each lesson has made them fulfilled and unafraid of death."Just be yourself" has been the advice of every parent since Polonius.Izzo found that the simple phrase,"be true to yourself," is the first secret.Seventy-two-year-old Elsa told the author,"In o

Galbraith's classic on the "economics of abundance" is, in thewords of the New York Times, "a compelling challenge toconventional thought." With customary clarity, eloquence, andhumor, Galbraith cuts to the heart of what economic security means(and doesn't mean) in today's world and lays bare the hazards ofindividual and societal complacence about economic inequity. While"affluent society" and "conventional wisdom" (first used in thisbook) have entered the vernacular, the message of the book has notbeen so widely embraced--reason enough to rediscover The AffluentSociety.

The Great Inflation in the 1960s and 1970s, notes award-winning columnist Robert J. Samuelson, played a crucial role in transforming American politics, economy, and everyday life. The direct consequences included stagnation in living standards, a growing belief both in America and abroad that the great-power status of the United States was ending, and Ronald Reagan s election to the presidency in 1980. But that is only half the story. The end of high inflation led to two decades of almost uninterrupted economic growth, rising stock prices and ever-increasing home values. Paradoxically, this prolonged prosperity triggered the economic and financial collapse of 2008 and 2009 by making Americans from bank executives to ordinary homeowners overconfident, complacent, and careless. The Great Inflation and its Aftermath , Samuelson contends, demonstrated that we have not yet escaped the boom-and-bust cycles common in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This is a sobering tale essential for anyone wh