The Optimist's Handbook

Jacket text for The Optimist's Handbook

Miserable world. Miserable life. Switch on the telly and it is always doom and gloom... is there no encouraging news to be had?

The bookshops are full of books about how bad things are, but is the situation really that bad?

When you start looking, there is quite a lot going on that doesn't make it into the news, onto advertising hoardings or onto the bookshelves. But should we even try to look on the bright side or are we only fooling ourselves?

This book is not designed to be a slushy collection of inspiring thoughts that wishes away unpleasant realities. It is meant to be a hard-nosed look at whether we have got the balance right: is there more good news to share? And should we be taking a more positive view on the world today?

In this brand new book Nick Inman pulls together a list of 100 non-sh*t things for us to feel glad about – a book to inspire the reader while they are slogging to work or taking a break from the ironing. There may not be a perfect world around the corner but there can at least be a little hope...(and something to smile about).

Chapter headings for The Optimist's Handbook

Contents
Introduction
Altruism
Anaesthetics
Appropriate technology
Architecture, ecological
Awareness, environmental
The best of all possible worlds
Body, your
Book, the survival of the
Boredom, the end of
Candide
Capital punishment
Capitalism, caring
Childhood
Clarke's guide to the impossible
Climate change (for believers)
Climate change (for deniers)
Colour
Community
Conspiracy theories
Courage
Death
Democracy
Dentists
Diamond, John
Disease, eradication of
Economics, new thinking in
Education
Email
Energy
Europeans
Evil
Failure
Films to make you feel good
Flow
Folly
Food
Freedom
Futurology
Gadgets
Happiness
Helen Keller
Herd mentality
Hope
Human nature
Humanity, the rest of
Humour, a sense of
Immigration
Immortality
India
Intelligence
Internet
Invention
Jobs
Kennedy's peace speech
Knowledge
Life expectancy
Little free things in life
Long Now
Meaning of life
Medicine
Memory
Men
Micawber, Wilkins
Millennium Development Goals
Nature
Nelson Mandela
Networking
News, good
Nukes
Old age
Optimism bias
Pandora's puzzling present
Paradigm shift
Particularities
Peacemakers
Pessimism
Philosophical consolations
Plastic
Politics, optimistic
Pollyanna
Population
Positive thinking
Poverty as history
Prozac
Radical hope
Reading, bedtime
Reality TV
Religion
Rights
Robinson Crusoe assesses his situation
Said/done/written/painted etc. before
Scientists
Someone always worse off than you
Songs to put a spring in your step
Taboos, the passing of
Terrorism
Therapy
Things are at least as good as they were
Thinking
Transitions
Violence
Wonders of the world
World government
Worse, things could always be
... the end of the world
Sources

About Nick Inman

Nick Inman was born in Yorkshire in 1956 and studied politics at the University of Bristol in the 1970s before becoming a travel writer specialising in Spain. He is married with two children and lives in southwest France.

More about Nick Inman