Happiness TM
Will Ferguson
Available as Paperback
‘A gleeful satire on the self-help industry and a must-read’ JONATHAN COE
When one of those irritating self-help books actually gets it right, then unnatural and worrying times are just around the corner …
While the rest of the country is joining the new HappinessTM cult, Edwin (the wiry, grey-suited, low-level editor at US publisher Panderic Press) is in trouble. A cartel of drug, alcohol, tobacco and drug-rehab bosses have a contract out on him.
It’s all the fault of the mysterious Tupac Soiree, and his book What I Learned on the Mountain. But who is Tupac? And how can Edwin stop the world from succumbing to this plague of HappinessTM?
Will Ferguson has created a comic masterpiece, a brutal satire of modern times.
“A brilliant parody … bright and very funny”
mail On Sunday
See more reviews
“A sizzling satire on self-help culture”
Daily Mail
“Will Ferguson’s talent as a satirist is to be treasured. His wit enlivens every page, and what starts as an amusing book about publishing expands into a glorious romp though modern life”
literary Review
“A gleeful satire on the self-help industry and a must-read”
Jonathan Coe
“Will Ferguson is a very gifted writer”
Bill Bryson
Will Ferguson
Will Ferguson was born and raised in the former fur-trapping settlement of Fort Vermilion in the backwoods of northern Canada. Fortunately, he managed to escape, and he has since travelled throughout Latin America and East Asia. Indeed, he prides himself on having gotten utterly and hopelessly lost in more than a dozen exotic locales, including Ecuador, Peru, Indonesia, Malaysia, China, Korea, and Japan.
‘How I ever became a travel writer is beyond me,’ he confesses. ‘I have absolutely no sense of direction.’
Ferguson has a BFA in screenwriting from York University, Toronto. His first three books were plucked from the slush pile: he is the author of the satirical bestseller Why I Hate Canadians, which was all but banned from export (though it can be ordered online at chapters.ca, he advises), and his other works include a nuts-and-bolts traveller’s bible, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Japan, as well as a humorous exposé about his experience in a misguided drunken government youth program, entitled I Was a Teenage Katima-victim! He has also written an insightful and highly scientific political analysis: Bastards & Boneheads (it was a study of our leaders).