By examining how people in other times have found powerful reasons to stay alive when suicide seems a tempting choice, she makes a persuasive intellectual and moral case against suicide.
The poems are psychological; tender and humane, and somehow ruthless. This is poetry that swarms with ideas, that revels in rhythmic intricacy and literary references, but is also clear as a bell, and tells marvelous stories.
Historian Hecht looks at contemporary happiness advice and, with a newfound historical perspective, liberates readers from the scolding, quasi-scientific messages that insist there is a formula for happiness and offers real lessons that ...