David Malouf 
The Happy Life 
The Search for Contentment in the Modern World

What makes for a happy life?


Amid the constant chatter of today’s world, with its 24-hour news cycles, Twitter and mobile communications, David Malouf returns to the ancient question of what makes us happy.


With grace and profundity, Malouf discusses new and old ways to talk about contentment and the self. In considering the happy life – what it is, and what makes it possible – he returns to the “highest wisdom” of the classics, looks at how, thanks to Thomas Jefferson’s way with words, happiness became a “right, ” and contrasts joy in the flesh, as depicted by Rubens and Rembrandt, with the way we view our bodies today.


In a world become ever larger and more impersonal, Malouf finds happiness in an unlikely place. This is a book to savour and reflect upon by one of Australia’s greatest novelists.


This edition includes responses to The Happy Life by leading commentators, including Robert Dessaix, Anne Manne, Elizabeth Farrelly and Tim Soutphommasane.


‘The Happy Life brilliantly provokes thought and invites debate. David Malouf makes a fascinating and valuable contribution to that essential precondition of happiness: namely, the task of understanding what it is.’ —AC Grayling


‘A poised and deeply humane essay, beautifully written and carefully argued.’ —The Australian


‘A wonderful … reflection on happiness in the Western tradition.’ —Canberra Times


‘A rewarding reflection on human restlessness and the need for limits.’ —The Age


‘Entertaining and insightful.’ —Sydney Morning Herald

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David Malouf is the author of poems, fiction, libretti and essays. In 1996, his novel Remembering Babylon was awarded the first International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. His 1998 Boyer Lectures were published as A Spirit of Play: The Making of Australian Consciousness. In 2000 he was selected as the sixteenth Neustadt Laureate. His most recent novel is Ransom.