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Join us on Thursday at 3PM to chat about the book!

The Art of Happiness

by Andre Maurois

This week in the book club we will be reading 'The Art of Happiness' by Aundre Maurois, from the book 'The Art of Living'. Maurois speaks to the soul of the reader. The principles he conveys remain as valid and as useful in the 21st century as they were in the 20th. According to Maurois, our lives are works of art, expressions of inner beauty, conceived and created by our inner selves, tested by the circumstances and experiences of life, perfected and modified by the learning and growth resulting from these experiences.

Few authors have expressed these timeless principles with more eloquence than André Maurois, one of the most celebrated and prolific French writers of the 20th century. The Art of Living was first published in France in 1939. It is divided into multiple sections: The Art of Loving, The Art of Marriage, The Art of Family Life, The Art of Freindship, The Art of Thinking,The Art of Working, The Art of Leadership, and The Art of Growing Old and the chapter we will be reading this week: 'The Art of Happiness'.

The real value of 'The Art of Living', is that the sentences are not merely a collection of words to convey a practical thought, but a communication to the spirit of the reader.

The original version publshed in english and translated by James Whitall in July 1940 had Nine Chapters, subsiquent versions such as the Sergio E Saranno translation do not include all of this original chapters and contain only five: The Art of Thinking, The Art of Loving, The Art of Working, The Art of Leadership, and The Art of Growing Old.

“We are almost always the craftsman of our own unhappiness.”
― André Maurois, Climats

Read the book online

The Art of Living - Art of Happiness

The book can be purchased online from various sources

The version i have is the older translation from the original french by James Whitall which is a hard copy and has engravings but they are a bit harder to come by. The other available copy is a more recent translation from 2008 by Sergio E Serrano ( This version does not contain this weeks chapter 'The Art of Happiness')

Art of Living - James Whitall version 1960

Art of Living - Sergio E Serrano version 2008

If you have superb french you might be interested to listen to Maurois talk on this topic in this lecture: Alain and happiness

About the Author

André Maurois, born Émile Salomon Wilhelm Herzog; 26 July 1885 – 9 October 1967 was a French author and Philosopher. Maurois was born on 26 July 1885 in Elbeuf and educated at the Lycée Pierre Corneille in Rouen, both in Normandy. His family had fled Alsace after the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71 and took refuge in Elbeuf, where they owned a woollen mill. During World War I he joined the French army and served as an interpreter and later a liaison officer with the British army. His first novel, Les silences du colonel Bramble, was a witty and socially realistic account of that experience. It was an immediate success in France. It was translated and became popular in the United Kingdom and other English-speaking countries as The Silence of Colonel Bramble. 

When World War II began, he was appointed the French Official Observer attached to the British General Headquarters. In this capacity he accompanied the British Army to Belgium. He knew personally the main politicians in the French Government, and on 10 June 1940 he was sent on a mission to London. After the Armistice ended that mission, Maurois was demobilised and travelled from England to Canada. He wrote of these experiences in his book, Tragedy in France.

What is the book club?

Join us every week for a book club, each week we will read a new short story of part of a larger book, the books will be made available as an audio book and we will meet as a group via zoom to chat about the story. All are welcome, hope to see you there. 

How to join the club to chat

The zoom link to join will apear above on this page at 3PM on Thursday. To join you will need a phone/tablet or laptop with a built in camera and microphone (most modern devices come with this) you may need to download the zoom app onto your phone if you are using a phone to join.

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