The Sweet Spot

This book will challenge you to rethink your vision of a good life. With sharp insights and lucid prose, Paul Bloom makes a captivating case that pain and suffering are essential to happiness. It's an exhilarating antidote to toxic positivity -- Adam Grant, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Think Again Paul Bloom can always be counted on to take your confident assumptions about humanity and turn them upside down. With The Sweet Spot, he's done it again! But this time, his investigations into pain and suffering, pleasure and meaning ask-and answer-the perennial question of what makes life worth living. You won't want to miss this eloquent and erudite book -- Susan Cain, author of Quiet Provocative, fascinating, and insightful-in other words, just what you'd expect from Paul Bloom, one of the world's best writers and deepest thinkers about human behavior. His argument about why we sometimes seek sorrow, fear, and pain is, paradoxically, a pleasure to read. So get out your highlighter and clear your calendar, because once you open this book, you won't be able to put it down -- Daniel Gilbert, author of New York Times bestseller Stumbling on Happiness Paul Bloom has a gift for spotting paradoxes in human nature and resolving them with deep, satisfying explanations, and this lucid and fascinating book does it again with our puzzling masochisms -- Steven Pinker, author of How the Mind Works This delightful and wonderfully written book manages to ask one of the most important questions in modern thought: What is happiness, really? Paul Bloom gets to the heart of the matter, taking on a truly important mission: to illustrate how complex and rich human happiness really is. It turns out that, like all things human, happiness can be confusing, paradoxical, embarrassing, and sometimes just bizarre -- Greg Lukianoff, co-author of The Coddling of the American Mind A laugh-out-loud-funny and totally thought-provoking tour of the most curious parts of human pleasure! With tantalizing examples you can't wait to tell your friends, Bloom provides a fun and theoretically insightful journey into our species' strangest forms of enjoyment. It's a book that will definitely hit your sweet spot! -- Laurie Santos, Professor of Psychology at Yale University and host of The Happiness Lab podcast Paul Bloom, one of the best writers we have about the human condition, has done it again. What a fascinating book! The Sweet Spot is a profound meditation on happiness, family, and meaning. This book provides enough challenging ideas to give you just a bit of beautiful discomfort, but it is, above all, a joy to read -- A. J. Jacobs, author of It's All Relative Paul Bloom is a phenomenal psychologist. His research is always thought-provoking, and his writing clear and eloquent -- Maria Konnikova, author of The Biggest Bluff Forget your favorite motivational speaker for a moment and read this book. Paul Bloom gives you the real scoop on what it takes to live a good life, and it's not what you may think. Beyond pleasure, beyond joy, and even beyond happiness lies something deeper, more meaningful, and more transcendent. Chosen wisely, suffering can get you there. Paul Bloom shows you how -- Scott Barry Kaufman, author of Transcend and host of The Psychology Podcast Wonderfully humane, lucid and entertaining ... a brave and necessary tract for the times * Telegraph (on Against Empathy) * A great, provocative book ... that will legitimately change how you think about the world and your own sense of morality * New York Times (on Against Empathy) *