Gretchen Rubin

Gretchen Rubin on Creating Great Workplace Habits is a practical and focused approach on how to apply noted happiness and habits expert Gretchen Rubin's eye-opening research to the workplace. Gretchen explains the Four Tendencies individuals have and how they drive our habits, as illustrated in her book Better Than Before: What I Learned about Making and Breaking Habits—to Sleep More, Quit Sugar, Procrastinate Less, and Generally Build a Happier Life. She introduces practical strategies to… Show more

Gretchen Rubin on Creating Great Workplace Habits is a practical and focused approach on how to apply noted happiness and habits expert Gretchen Rubin's eye-opening research to the workplace. Gretchen explains the Four Tendencies individuals have and how they drive our habits, as illustrated in her book Better Than Before: What I Learned about Making and Breaking Habits—to Sleep More, Quit Sugar, Procrastinate Less, and Generally Build a Happier Life. She introduces practical strategies to create better work habits and tips for ongoing success. With these techniques, you can build the foundation for a happier, healthier, and more productive life. Show less

365 days. 5 years. 1,825 moments captured. In her best-selling book The Happiness Project, Gretchen Rubin discovers the pleasure of writing just one sentence every day. The Happiness Project One-Sentence Journal helps you to make a fascinating and revealing time capsule of the next five years of your life. Simply turn to today’s date, reflect on the quote at the top of the page, and jot down just one sentence (perhaps about something good that happened that day). This daily ritual is highly… Show more

365 days. 5 years. 1,825 moments captured. In her best-selling book The Happiness Project, Gretchen Rubin discovers the pleasure of writing just one sentence every day. The Happiness Project One-Sentence Journal helps you to make a fascinating and revealing time capsule of the next five years of your life. Simply turn to today’s date, reflect on the quote at the top of the page, and jot down just one sentence (perhaps about something good that happened that day). This daily ritual is highly do-able and provides a striking sense of accomplishment, and as the years go by you can see how your entries evolve.
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One Sunday afternoon, as she unloaded the dishwasher, Gretchen Rubin felt hit by a wave of homesickness. Homesick—why? She was standing right in her own kitchen. She felt homesick, she realized, with love for home itself. “Of all the elements of a happy life,” she thought, “my home is the most important.” In a flash, she decided to undertake a new happiness project, and this time, to focus on home.

And what did she want from her home? A place that calmed her, and energized her. A place… Show more

One Sunday afternoon, as she unloaded the dishwasher, Gretchen Rubin felt hit by a wave of homesickness. Homesick—why? She was standing right in her own kitchen. She felt homesick, she realized, with love for home itself. “Of all the elements of a happy life,” she thought, “my home is the most important.” In a flash, she decided to undertake a new happiness project, and this time, to focus on home.

And what did she want from her home? A place that calmed her, and energized her. A place that, by making her feel safe, would free her to take risks. Also, while Rubin wanted to be happier at home, she wanted to appreciate how much happiness was there already.

So, starting in September (the new January), Rubin dedicated a school year—September through May—to making her home a place of greater simplicity, comfort, and love.

In The Happiness Project, she worked out general theories of happiness. Here she goes deeper on factors that matter for home, such as possessions, marriage, time, and parenthood. How can she control the cubicle in her pocket? How might she spotlight her family’s treasured possessions? And it really was time to replace that dud toaster.

Each month, Rubin tackles a different theme as she experiments with concrete, manageable resolutions—and this time, she coaxes her family to try some resolutions, as well.

With her signature blend of memoir, science, philosophy, and experimentation, Rubin’s passion for her subject jumps off the page, and reading just a few chapters of this book will inspire readers to find more happiness in their own lives. Show less

Gretchen Rubin had an epiphany one rainy afternoon in the unlikeliest of places: a city bus. "The days are long, but the years are short," she realized. "Time is passing, and I'm not focusing enough on the things that really matter." In that moment, she decided to dedicate a year to her happiness project.

In this lively and compelling account, Rubin chronicles her adventures during the twelve months she spent test-driving the wisdom of the ages, current scientific research, and lessons… Show more

Gretchen Rubin had an epiphany one rainy afternoon in the unlikeliest of places: a city bus. "The days are long, but the years are short," she realized. "Time is passing, and I'm not focusing enough on the things that really matter." In that moment, she decided to dedicate a year to her happiness project.

In this lively and compelling account, Rubin chronicles her adventures during the twelve months she spent test-driving the wisdom of the ages, current scientific research, and lessons from popular culture about how to be happier. Among other things, she found that novelty and challenge are powerful sources of happiness; that money can help buy happiness, when spent wisely; that outer order contributes to inner calm; and that the very smallest of changes can make the biggest difference. Show less

Jewels buried in a grave, cigarettes smoked in $100 bills, champagne poured into a bathtub--these perverse, irrational acts are also somehow thrilling. Profane Waste explores the workings of an unacknowledged taboo: the taboo against willful dissipation. Dana Hoey, an acclaimed photographer appearing here in her first book, presents a series of 30 haunting images that are at once ultra-real and uncanny. Bestselling biographer and social critic Gretchen Rubin uses lucid analysis and explosive… Show more

Jewels buried in a grave, cigarettes smoked in $100 bills, champagne poured into a bathtub--these perverse, irrational acts are also somehow thrilling. Profane Waste explores the workings of an unacknowledged taboo: the taboo against willful dissipation. Dana Hoey, an acclaimed photographer appearing here in her first book, presents a series of 30 haunting images that are at once ultra-real and uncanny. Bestselling biographer and social critic Gretchen Rubin uses lucid analysis and explosive examples--the actions of Rauschenberg, Jesus, Ivan Boesky, Thoreau and Goebbels, among others--to demonstrate the power of the title concept. Together, Hoey's photographs and Rubin's provocative arguments create a shock of recognition: they lay bare intentions that stand outside the conventional goals of acquisition and accumulation. Show less

Statesman and hero, opportunist and fraud. John F. Kennedy’s contradictions have inspired such fascination that the public’s interest in him has never dimmed. Now, with the same striking technique she used in the bestselling Forty Ways to Look at Winston Churchill, Gretchen Rubin has written an enthralling new work that captures the crucial elements of Kennedy’s story.

Rubin’s “forty ways” approach highlights JFK’s high ideals, trenchant wit, glamorous family, and unforgettable… Show more

Statesman and hero, opportunist and fraud. John F. Kennedy’s contradictions have inspired such fascination that the public’s interest in him has never dimmed. Now, with the same striking technique she used in the bestselling Forty Ways to Look at Winston Churchill, Gretchen Rubin has written an enthralling new work that captures the crucial elements of Kennedy’s story.

Rubin’s “forty ways” approach highlights JFK’s high ideals, trenchant wit, glamorous family, and unforgettable charisma; it also examines his astonishing sexual appetite, his lies to the public, his shrewd manipulation of the press, and his exploitation of imagery. By showing the many sides of JFK–ranked by the public, but not historians, as one of America’s greatest presidents–Rubin invites readers to decide whether Kennedy was a great statesman or a shallow charmer; whether his success was due to his own merits or to his ruthless father; whether he could be both an unfaithful husband and a good man.

Most important, this biography seeks to solve the enduring puzzle about JFK: What made Kennedy Kennedy? What made him such a dazzling, unforgettable figure? How did he become a secular saint and a political movie star? Rubin illuminates Kennedy’s provocative character and explains the source of his enduring magic as not even the most exhaustive JFK studies have managed to do.

Forty Ways to Look at JFK stands out among Kennedy biographies as a splendidly focused assessment of Kennedy’s life, presidency, and myth. It is for both Kennedy fans and anyone fascinated by the impact of his personality on American culture and politics. Crisp, vivid, and brilliantly readable, it is a significant addition to the author’s innovative approach to biography. Show less

Warrior and writer, genius and crank, rider in the British cavalry’s last great charge and inventor of the tank, Winston Churchill led Britain to fight alone against Nazi Germany in the fateful year of 1940 and set the standard for leading a democracy at war. With penetrating insight and vivid anecdotes, Gretchen Rubin makes Churchill accessible and meaningful to twenty-first-century readers by analyzing the many contrasting views of the man: he was an alcoholic, he was not; he was an… Show more

Warrior and writer, genius and crank, rider in the British cavalry’s last great charge and inventor of the tank, Winston Churchill led Britain to fight alone against Nazi Germany in the fateful year of 1940 and set the standard for leading a democracy at war. With penetrating insight and vivid anecdotes, Gretchen Rubin makes Churchill accessible and meaningful to twenty-first-century readers by analyzing the many contrasting views of the man: he was an alcoholic, he was not; he was an anachronism, he was a visionary; he was a racist, he was a humanitarian; he was the most quotable man in the history of the English language, he was a bore.

Like no other portrait of its famous subject, Forty Ways to Look at Winston Churchill is a dazzling display of facts more improbable than fiction. It brings to full realization the depiction of a man too fabulous for any novelist to construct, too complex for even the longest narrative to describe, and too significant ever to be forgotten. Show less

Learn from Michael Jordan, Robert Moses, Machiavelli, and Madonna - here at last is the guide for using power, money, fame, and sex that describes what actually works, rather than what ought to work. Instructive, ruthless, subversive, and entertaining, "Power Money Fame Sex" reveals the mysteries of office politics and personal posturing. Whether you're gunning for a promotion, a trophy wife, the cover of "Time", or a very early retirement, you'll find the secrets laid bare in this… Show more

Learn from Michael Jordan, Robert Moses, Machiavelli, and Madonna - here at last is the guide for using power, money, fame, and sex that describes what actually works, rather than what ought to work. Instructive, ruthless, subversive, and entertaining, "Power Money Fame Sex" reveals the mysteries of office politics and personal posturing. Whether you're gunning for a promotion, a trophy wife, the cover of "Time", or a very early retirement, you'll find the secrets laid bare in this indispensable guide. Here you'll find clear explanations with illustrations, tips, and quizzes, ready for use Monday morning. Lurking beneath this blunt advice is a piercing social critique - why we would choose to become a self-promoter, a bully, or a tease. Once you understand the tactics found here, will you decide how to use them or abuse them? Whether the intricate code exposed in "Power Money Fame Sex" inspires or infuriates you, remember: if these rules aren't working for you, they're working against you.
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