Five great books to celebrate International Day of Happiness

20th March 2021

Five great books to celebrate International Day of Happiness…

Hands up if you even knew there was an International Day of Happiness….? I certainly didn’t but what a splendid idea, particularly for these challenging times.

This year the International Day of Happiness (March 20th). Check out the website to find out more about this uplifting concept. It’s a global celebration to mark the United Nations International Day of Happiness, and is supported by Action for Happiness, a non-profit movement of people from 160 countries.

A profound shift in attitudes is underway all over the world. People are now recognising that ‘progress’ should be about increasing human happiness and wellbeing, not just growing the economy.

Here at TripFiction, we try to bring happiness through books. To celebrate this special day, here are five great books from around the world that will hopefully make you feel happier than usual on March 20th.

The Food of Love by Anthony Capella (who you just may know as J P Delaney) – ROME

In Anthony Capella’s delicious debut novel, Laura, a twenty-something American, is on her first trip to Italy. She’s completely enamoured of the art, beauty, and, of course, food that Rome has to offer. Soon she’s also enamoured of the handsome and charming Tommaso, who tells her he’s a chef at the famed Templi restaurant and begins to woo her with his gastronomic creations.

But Tommaso hasn’t been entirely truthful—he’s really just a waiter. The master chef behind the tantalising meals is Tommaso’s talented but shy friend Bruno, who loves Laura from afar.

Thus begins a classic comedy of errors full of the culinary magic and the sensual stmosphere of Italy. The result is a romantic comedy in the tradition of Cyrano de Bergerac and Roxanne that tempts readers to devour it in one sitting. Evoking the sights, smells and flavours of Italy in sensuous prose, this lively book also features recipes for readers to create (or just dream about) Bruno’s food of amore.

The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion – AUSTRALIA

An international sensation, this hilarious, feel-good novel is narrated by an oddly charming and socially challenged genetics professor on an unusual quest: to find out if he is capable of true love.

Don Tillman, professor of genetics, has never been on a second date. He is a man who can count all his friends on the fingers of one hand, whose lifelong difficulty with social rituals has convinced him that he is simply not wired for romance. So when an acquaintance informs him that he would make a “wonderful” husband, his first reaction is shock. Yet he must concede to the statistical probability that there is someone for everyone, and he embarks upon The Wife Project. In the orderly, evidence-based manner with which he approaches all things, Don sets out to find the perfect partner. She will be punctual and logical—most definitely not a barmaid, a smoker, a drinker, or a late-arriver.

Yet Rosie Jarman is all these things. She is also beguiling, fiery, intelligent—and on a quest of her own. She is looking for her biological father, a search that a certain DNA expert might be able to help her with. Don’s Wife Project takes a back burner to the Father Project and an unlikely relationship blooms, forcing the scientifically minded geneticist to confront the spontaneous whirlwind that is Rosie—and the realization that love is not always what looks good on paper.

The Rosie Project is a moving and hilarious novel for anyone who has ever tenaciously gone after life or love in the face of overwhelming challenges.

The Authenticity Project by Clare Pooley – LONDON

Six strangers with one thing in common: their lives aren’t always what they make them out to be. What would happen if they told the truth instead?

Julian Jessop is tired of hiding the deep loneliness he feels. So he begins The Authenticity Project – a small green notebook containing the truth about his life. Leaving the notebook on a table in his friendly neighbourhood café, Julian never expects Monica, the owner, to track him down after finding it. Or that she’ll be inspired to write down her own story.

Little do they realise that such small acts of honesty hold the power to impact all those who discover the notebook and change their lives completely.

The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan – SAN FRANCISCO

Four mothers, four daughters, four families, whose histories shift with the four winds depending on who’s telling the stories. In 1949, four Chinese women, recent immigrants to San Francisco, meet weekly to play mahjong and tell stories of what they left behind in China. United in loss and new hope for their daughters’ futures, they call themselves the Joy Luck Club. Their daughters, who have never heard these stories, think their mothers’ advice is irrelevant to their modern American lives – until their own inner crises reveal how much they’ve unknowingly inherited of their mothers’ pasts.

With wit and sensitivity, Amy Tan examines the sometimes painful, often tender, and always deep connection between mothers and daughters. As each woman reveals her secrets, trying to unravel the truth about her life, the strings become more tangled, more entwined. Mothers boast or despair over daughters, and daughters roll their eyes even as they feel the inextricable tightening of their matriarchal ties. Tan is an astute storyteller, enticing readers to immerse themselves into these lives of complexity and mystery.

The Little Paris Bookshop by Nina George – PARIS & PROVENCE

On a beautifully restored barge on the Seine, Jean Perdu runs a bookshop; or rather a ‘literary apothecary’, for this bookseller possesses a rare gift for sensing which books will soothe the troubled souls of his customers.

The only person he is unable to cure, it seems, is himself. He has nursed a broken heart ever since the night, twenty-one years ago, when the love of his life fled Paris, leaving behind a handwritten letter that he has never dared read. His memories and his love have been gathering dust – until now. The arrival of an enigmatic new neighbour in his eccentric apartment building on Rue Montagnard inspires Jean to unlock his heart, unmoor the floating bookshop and set off for Provence, in search of the past and his beloved.

Have you read and enjoyed any of these five feel-good books? What is your own favourite that sends you to a happy place?

Please spread your happiness around by commenting below, or by joining Team TripFiction on social media. And not just on March 20th!

Andrew for the TripFiction team

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