Impacted by parental divorce resulting in a very sad childhood, I discovered in my mid-thirties the need to strive for a happy life. After a painful divorce from my first husband, introspection, therapy and reading philosophers, I filled my life with happy people; those who were married and those who were single. I avoided association with those people who were cruel to others. I discovered that one can create happiness, rather than suffering, with pain. Keeping an optimistic attitude is vital at every age. Now I have had a happy forty-six years. Because of personal experience and reading books exploring which countries have the happiest people, I decided to document a few of the happy people in my life. I have taken nearly all the photographs of the people shown in this book. Most have written their own stories. Recently, an editor of a magazine essay wrote that I was planning to publish a book about how to be happy featuring people and their things. I made a correction. The happy people in this book tell about their philosophies. Family and friendships are the important keys to lives of contentment. --Joan Liffring-Zug Bourret This book contains the stories of people from ages eleven to ninety-two and what makes them happy.
About the Author: Penfield Press aka Penfield Books was founded in 1979 by Joan Liffring-Zug Bourret, an Iowa photographer and writer, and her late husband, John Zug, an editor and writer. The company is named in honor of the publisher's grandmother, Eva Adora Penfield, daughter of a Civil War veteran and his wife who flipped a coin and decided to join the last covered wagon train west from Wichita, Kansas, to Bellingham, Washington, in the 1870s. Over 30 years and more than 110 titles later, Penfield now has sales throughout the United States and in Canada, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. In 2001, we founded a sister company called Penfield Books. Penfield Books publishes and distributes existing Penfield Press titles, as well as new titles with the Penfield Books imprint. Penfield continues to distribute not only its own titles, but also books of related topics from other publishers. Penfield has brought back into print selective writings of Selma Lagerlof, who, in 1909, became the first female writer (and the first Swede) to win the Nobel Prize in literature. Difficult to find in translation, her writings had been out of print for more than 60 years. She is noted for GOSTA BERLING'S SAGA, MEMORIES OF MARBACKA, and her wonderful children's books. Penfield takes great pride in bringing these works by one of Sweden's best-loved storytellers to readers in America. In 2009, we were recognized as a Midwest Independent Publishers Association (MIPA) 2008 prize winner for our title, License to Cook Missouri Style. The 19th Annual Midwest book awards attracted 149 nominations from 66 publishers in the 12 Midwestern states in our region. In 2008, Penfield was recognized as a Midwest Independent Publishers Association 2007 prize winner for our title, Recetas De Vieho Mexico: Recipes of Old Mexico. Among Penfield's authors, Julie Jensen McDonald, Pat Martin, Louise Roalson, and Carol Van Klompenburg have all won top national honors in contests of the National Federation of Press Women for the books by these authors published by Penfield. Penfield's ethnic books are of primary interest to Americans of Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Icelandic, Irish, Norwegian, Polish, Scottish, Slovak, Swedish, Ukrainian descent, and more. Several new titles are released each year. Penfield is dedicated to quality, accuracy, and to the production of books that are both exciting and useful to readers. Joan's autobiography is available. It is called "Pictures and People."