Cranky, bitter and weighed down with life, but otherwise generally happy. The rich heritage of Shakespeare and Wordsworth at his beck and call, and all that Edwin could come up with was “shit”. Two million years of human evolution, 500,000 years of language, 450 years of modern English. It shows us what our economy is built on (embarrassing, really), and shows us the importance of being joyful. The book is full of cynicism, sarcasm, and pessimism. Despite his loser-ish tendencies, he is a likable character.Īnd once again, May wondered what exactly she saw in such a jumpy, skittish, skinny, sarcastic, compulsive man as our Edwin. He’s a young pessimistic hothead, who is married but in love with his best friend, May. The protagonist of this book, Edwin, is an editor in the self-help department at Panderic Inc.

If someone ever wrote a self-help book that actually worked, one that cured our woes and banished our bad habits, the results would be catastrophic. It tells of a devastating plague of human happiness, an epidemic of warm fuzzy hugs, and a mysterious trailer on the edge of a desert… This is the story of apocalypse: Apocalypse Nice. And I think one of the characters loses a finger at some point, too. This book is about the end of the world, and as such, it involves diet cookbooks, self-help gurus, sewer-crawling convicts, overworked editors, the economic collapse of the United States of America and the widespread tilling of alfalfa fields. In the Caveat Emptor, Ferguson describes his book: Happiness tells the story of a self-help book that causes the end of the world (as we know it). Happiness won the Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour in 2002. I am currently reading Canadian Pie as a tertiary book (because it can easily be read that way), and I have just finished reading Happiness, a novel formerly known as Generica. That just made me more curious to check out his funny stuff. There were some disturbing scenes in that book. I was impressed with it, as it opened my eyes to the world of scamming, and the visions of oil-slicked Niger Delta still torment me. Because I don’t often read funny books or travel books, 419 was the first book I read by Ferguson. In 2012, he won the Scotiabank Giller Prize with his novel 419, which is anything but humorous. Some of his best known books include How to Be A Canadian, Beauty Tip s From Moosejaw, and 419. Will Ferguson is a Canadian writer who is well known for his humorous travel writing and observations about Canadian culture.

How to Be a Canadian by Will Ferguson