Every time you see him, he's laughing. And he makes everyone else around him feel like smiling. He's the Dalai Lama, the spiritual and temporal leader of Tibet, a Nobel Prize winner, and a hugely sought-after speaker and statesman. If you ask him if he's happy, even after so much loss, the Dalai Lama will give you an unconditional yes. What's more, he'll tell you that happiness is the purpose of life and that the very motion of our life is toward happiness.

How to get there has always been the question. The Art of Happiness is the book that started the genre of happiness books, and it remains the cornerstone of the field of positive psychology.