Dear Great Book Guru, Well, now the holidays are really over- everyone is back at work or school and the winter blues are beginning to set in.  Do you have something to help your readers get through this dreary time of year?  Looking to Beat the Winter Blues

Dear Looking to Beat the Winter Blues,   I received a very interesting book as a Christmas gift from Daniel DiPietro:  THE ANTIDOTE-Happiness for Those Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking by Oliver Burkeman, a writer for the British newspaper The Guardian. Burkeman debunks many self-help champions like Norman Vincent Peale, Wayne Dyer,  and Eckhart Tolle with their message of looking on the bright side and thinking  positive thoughts will guarantee a happy outcome. Instead he suggests looking to the ancient Greeks, especially the Stoics with their realistic approach to life’s adversities. By confronting  and studying the worst scenarios, he suggests we can embrace failure and loss and be free to enjoy what remains. It is certainly a counterintuitive idea, but the author gives much evidence of its success. He also uses the tenets of Buddhism to support his belief that a good life is one  lived in the present, accepting that the past is over, and that the future will never to be realized. THE ANTIDOTE offers a very readable, at times humorous survey of philosophical trends over the centuries and we are left with a much more nuanced definition of happiness.