Rating: 
Summary: a decent book on an important topic
Review: Seligman has chosen to address a very important topic- namely how we should pursue happiness- and does a decent job providing answers. The main message I took home is that if you pursue meaningful activities that use your "signature strengths", you will achieve happiness in the process. Seligman also fills the book with quite a bit of fluffy psychology and terms which I didn't find too informative. Nonetheless, this book is well worth reading. Avery Z. Conner, author of "Fevers of the Mind".
Rating: 
Summary: An extremely worthwhile book
Review: As a psychologist, I completely understand Martin Seligman's drive to free psychology from its obsession with negativity. Freud, he writes, made many people "unduly embittered about their past and unduly passive about their future," while clinical psychology focussed on diagnosing and treating mental disorders. In his new book, Authentic Happiness, Seligman goes a long way towards breaking psychology free from its love affair with pathology and replacing it with a far more positive approach.I don't know of anyone with better credentials to guide readers through what psychology has discovered about happiness. Seligman's own research has contributed greatly to our understanding of the entire range of human experience from profound depression to "abundant gratification." His early, groundbreaking studies of learned helplessness provided great insight into inescapable trauma as a major source of helplessness and depression. He went on to study "learned optimism" as a powerful antidote to depression--his earlier book by that name is invaluable. Now, Seligman sets out to provide readers with the insights and tools from the relatively new field of positive psychology. He does this with a rich mixture of anecdotes, personal revelations and research. In addition, he provides frequent self-assessments and exercises. I think that almost anyone who takes the time to read what Seligman has to say, who takes and thinks about the self assessments, and who does the exercises, will start thinking and acting in ways that lead to lasting happiness. It's important to realize that Seligman is not a self-help guru by any stretch of the imagination. He is a leading research psychologist who builds on solid experimental findings. (Although the book is vividly written for the most part, at times Seligman's reliance on research findings slows things down.) Still, he is also devoted to the idea of making those often dry experiments as meaningful and useful as possible. He doesn't promise limitless bliss, but what he does offer may actually be reachable by ordinary, unenlightened people like us. Early in the book Seligman makes the point that pleasure in itself is not the road to happiness. As we all know, pleasure is fleeting, and pursuing it can easily turn into addiction or futility. Instead Seligman identifies and values a set of nearly universal virtues which he believes lead to deep and lasting gratification. These include wisdom and knowledge, courage, love and humanity, justice, temperance, spirituality and transcendance. "The good life," he writes, "is using your signature strengths every day to produce authentic happiness and abundant gratification." What I liked most about this book is that it made me feel good about myself, other people, and the "simple" virtues that make up much of the fabric of life, but which are often ignored and devalued. Kindness, tolerance, competence, interpersonal skills, a work ethic, and faith emerge as vital ingredients of a good, gratifying, happy life. Authentic Happiness is not a miracle cure for all unhappiness. It is, however, a wise, well-informed, and extremely valuable guide to a more grounded, heartfelt and gratifying life. Robert Adler, Author of _Sharing the Children: How to Resolve Custody Problems and Get on With Your Life_(1988, 2nd. Ed. 2001), and _Science Firsts: From the Creation of Science to the Science of Creation_ (2002).
Rating: 
Summary: Tentative thoughts.....
Review: Admittedly I have not read this entire book in depth or done all of the excercises. I have skimmed it , read parts and done a couple of the excercises online just in case I found it to be worth the 26.00 dollars.I didn't. All in all it seems to me to be a quasi-religious,fuzzy notioned, naive tome of utopian collectivism.But what do I really think? Well for one I don't like his seeming endorsement of fundamentalist religion as indicitive of a superior method for happiness. This seems like the old ignorance is bliss arguement to me and he seems to endorse it. I'll take a little pessimism over arbritrary conformity and "playing by the rules" just to not encounter any "unhappiness".I think the cognitive guys have more to offer as in David Burns "Feeling Good" books and Albert Ellis's Rational Emotive Therapy oriented books.One can bear a little unhappiness in the search for integrity and self-respect even if it means bucking the system and not being "Positive Polly".
Rating:
Summary: You want to be happy?
Review: Here are the books I would recommend you read in your quest for happiness: What Happy People Know, Happiness Is Free, The Little Guide To Happiness, and this book, Authentic Happiness. I've read alot of book on happiness. I'm almost an expert myself now on the subject. Plus, I'm pretty darn happy. So, take my advice. Any one of these are excellent choices.
Rating:
Summary: A Good Book for Some (at least)
Review: "Authentic Happiness" is an informative and/or helpful book for some people, perhaps many people. Other people might find a different book to be more informative and/or helpful for them. Isn't that the whole point of the personality psychology of individual differences? It seems unlikely that any one book, by itself, could be exactly right for every person, no matter what her or his personality, background, current life situation, or future aspirations are. Personally, I think this book is quite good for what it aims to be. And its web site is interesting. But one should look before one leaps -- read descriptions for several books, compare them & etc.. To search to find books that match one's present context seems a sensible strategy. But to expect one particular book to be either very good or very bad for all people would be inconsistent with decades of research findings from the personality psychology of individual differences. Not to mention, inauthentic and unhappy.
Rating: 
Summary: Describes happiness, doesn't say how to get there
Review: If you are new to the word "happy" and want a dictionary definition that lasts the length of a book, here is your ticket. If, on the other hand, you want tips for experiencing more happiness yourself, look elsewhere...this work is all theory, no practice.
Rating:
Summary: Loved it.
Review: This book is excellent if you want to be happy. I am troubled by a review below me however. Someone recommended "The negative power of positive thinking". That has got to be the worst most boring book I ever read.
Rating: 
Summary: Didn't he write this book ten years ago?
Review: Liked the book....Liked the exercises. The book offered some good insights, the exercises allowed me to view myself from a different light. I find nothing wrong with the message of the book or the validity of Seligmans research. But three stars is all I can give because those of us who read "Learned Optimism" had seen most of these arguments and taken most of these tests before. Granted doing them online made it a bit easier----but I can't give a superior review to a re-hashed work. Furthermore, while the material on evaluating yourself is thorough, the material about what to actually do with this information is a lot less clear. While knowing "who you are" is certainly half the battle in any self-help program, the other half "how you are going to change" is every bit as important. Seligman's answers are often imcomplete, sometimes silly. But I'm getting to harsh. The book is an easy read and the exercises are interesting and fun. I DID learn plenty about myself. Definitely one of the better in the self-help genre.
Rating:
Summary: Figure It Out Yourself
Review: I was disappointed by this book. While on the surface it looked like a great exercise, after reading it cover to cover and going through the exercises, I found that I came out not knowing anything new about myself. Save your money and just go to the website and do the exercises. I think there are better "get to know thyself" books out there.
Rating:
Summary: Helpful book, especially with supplement for the negatives
Review: My experience with Dr. Seligman's book and its website of personality tests has been very positive overall. So I do recommend this book. One limitation for me, which might also apply to some other readers, is that Authentic Happiness is a little incomplete on advice for people who are not optimistic by nature. My solution to this was to also read another new book --The Positive Power of Negative Thinking by psychologist Julie Norem. Her book and her personality test for 'constructive pessimism' balanced things for me, giving me helpful coverage of realistic individual differences -- so I pass that recommendation along, too.
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