Amid the constant chatter of today’s world, with its 24-hour news cycles, Twitter and mobile communications, David Malouf returns to the ancient question of what makes us happy.

With grace and profundity, Malouf discusses new and old ways to talk about contentment and the self. In considering the happy life – what it is, and what makes it possible – he returns to the “highest wisdom” of the classics, looks at how, thanks to Thomas Jefferson’s way with words, happiness became a “right,” and contrasts joy in the flesh, as depicted by Rubens and Rembrandt, with the way we view our bodies today.

In a world become ever larger and more impersonal, Malouf finds happiness in an unlikely place. This is a book to savour and reflect upon by one of Australia’s greatest novelists.

This edition includes responses to The Happy Life by leading commentators, including Robert Dessaix, Anne Manne, Elizabeth Farrelly and Tim Soutphommasane.