Episode · Hidden Brain · 2026-10-12
Books mentioned on Why Am I Unhappy?
We often imagine that feelings of unhappiness come from outside us — in our circumstances or the difficult people in our lives. But what if the forces that erode our happiness come from within?
Shankar Vedantam discussed Anna Karenina by Лев Толстой and others. George Loewenstein recommended The Opposite of Happiness by George Loewenstein.
Books mentioned, in the order they came up
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Anna Karenina
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy is a monumental 19th-century masterpiece of Russian literature that explores complex themes of love, adultery, social class, and tragic human choices.
Discussed“In his great novel, Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy spends hundreds of pages describing Count Vronsky's desperate longing to be with Anna, the woman he loves.”
Where to get it
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The Opposite of Happiness
Recommended“And maybe it will even make you more accepting of yourself, knowing how broadly shared your miseries are.”
Where to get it
Other mentions in this episode (3) — ad reads, self-promotion and passing references, never counted
Passing Survival in Auschwitz
“So this calls to mind the sad end of the author and the Holocaust survivor, Primo Levi. He was the author of Survival at Auschwitz.”
Plugged The Opposite of Happiness
“He's the author of The Opposite of Happiness, How Bad Feelings Make and Break Us.”
Plugged The Opposite of Happiness
“and an amusing coda to the story is that I sent this academic the manuscript of my book and he learned about how I almost did respond so negatively and he ended up, I won't give any more clues than that, but he ended up writing a blurb for the cover of my book so you can try to guess”