This book focuses on how the external environment can impact a person's state of mind. As the author notes, there are a lot of books on the importance of one's internal mindset, but people's surroundings also affect their mental health and behavior. Moreover, to the extent that books on external factors exist, the current trend is to focus on minimalism and the associated mental state of calmness.

This book, in turn, focuses on joy, not calmness. The author argues that the importance of joy is often neglected. Productivity is emphasized rather than creativity; achievement is emphasized over exploration or discovery. As the author says, "we have decided that [joy] is superfluous--the icing on the cake, rather than an integral part of the cake itself."

The book covers what the author describes as the aesthetics of joy. It is organized into ten chapters, each of which focuses on one category such as energy, abundance, transcendence, or renewal.

The book is well-written and thoroughly researched. The author visited and interviewed various people in relation to each of her themes. From the reader's perspective, it would have been nice to have had some photos to go along with the text, but that would have been difficult to pull off in a book format. (Perhaps there should have been an associated website for related multimedia content.) Another weakness is that the author has a tendency to oversell the importance of the external environment. Changing the color of the walls may improve a person's mood, but ultimately that impact is unlikely to be tremendously life-altering.

I particularly liked the last chapter on renewal, which notes that our culture tends to overemphasize linear progress forward over the cyclical nature of much of lived experience. Maybe this chapter seemed relevant because I was reading it in spring as the trees and flowers were blooming and the birds were migrating through my area.

Another chapter that I liked was the first one on energy. In that chapter, the author notes that although almost no one would say that beige or gray was his or her favorite color, somehow we all end up with living and working areas that are beige and gray. Furthermore, this is a cultural thing--for example, in Mexico, the color schemes are much brighter. This point seemed particularly important to me since I am in the middle of doing some interior decorating. However, after giving the matter some thought, I still ended up with a gray-based color scheme, albeit with some green, gold, and rose accents.

Overall this is a unique and easy-to-read book. Recommended.