Published: 28/01/2010
ISBN: 9781847082053
Granta Books
256 pages

Smile Or Die

Barbara Ehrenreich

In this highly original and hugely entertaining account, Barbara Ehrenreich confronts the cult of positive thinking in America. She examines the impact of positive thinking on religion, medicine, academia and the business community, and exposes the psychological effects of a world which tells us to ‘put on a happy face’. From the pink ribbons and platitudes that surround breast cancer sufferers to the blind optimism that led to the recent economic disaster, Ehrenreich pokes holes in conventional wisdom and faux science, and ends with a rallying cry for clarity and courage.

An invigoratingly aggressive and lucidly intelligent attack on the multi-tentacled nonsense monster ... for all the pleasure to be taken in its acidic wit, Smile or Die is deadly serious at its core ... Fine, funny and angry

Daily Mail, Book of the Week

Vindicated at last! All of us misanthropic misery guts, whingers and whiners, Seroxat-refuseniks, "walking nimbus clouds"; we grouches, saddos, naysayers, demoralisers and party-poopers - our day has dawned

Guardian

With wit and withering disdain, she shows how upbeat delusion is growing everywhere from the church to the office, and prescribes a dose of realism to stop the rot

New Statesman

The Author

Barbara Ehrenreich is the author of fifteen books, including the bestselling Smile or Die and Nickel and Dimed. She has written for Time, Harper’s, the New York Times Magazine and various British newspapers including The Times and the Guardian. She lives in Virginia, USA.