Voltaire - the last happy writer

This book is about four things: Voltaire, happiness, writing - and us.


In this book, Paul Kent sets off in search of happiness, with Voltaire as his guide. En route, he discusses some massively awkward questions, including: What exactly is happiness? Can we achieve it? Can any one era or society be said to be ‘happier’ than another? What makes for a happy writer? Was Voltaire happy? And what can we learn from his own pursuit of happiness, which he chronicled exhaustively?


This book is no dry exercise in theory: all human life is here, illuminated by the bones pensees of the mighty Voltaire - the original self-help guru.