Things To Be Happy About

The Wish List

book image THE WISH LIST is a quirky little gift book that sounds an irresistible call to get out there and start living. In the same chunky format as the author's bestselling 14,000 THINGS TO BE HAPPY ABOUT, THE WISH LIST presents a compulsively readable list of unexpected goals. There are wishes large -- retrace Odysseus' route around the Mediterranean and wishes small -- find a genuine arrowhead. There are artistic wishes -- write a sonnet; athletic wishes -- learn to box; practical wishes -- master the rudiments of plumbing; whimsical wishes -- become a taster at Ben & Jerry's; and fantasy wishes -- live in a Venetian palazzo. The Wish List is meant to plant seeds, jog us out of complacency, and articulate unspoken desires. It is an inspirational to-do list, sounding an irresistible call to get out there and start living.

  • write a fairy tale for my children about people and things they know
  • start every new year with a clean house, an uncluttered desk, and a new date book
  • see electronic "cash" replace the use of currency
  • attend the Texas State Fair in Dallas, largest in the country
  • hold a Jimmy Cagney movie festival
  • see the Great Altar of Pergamum, in a museum in Berlin
  • explore California's Highway 1
  • see Napoleon's Tomb at Les Invalides in Paris
  • study at the Culinary Institute of America
  • learn to use Usenet on the Web
  • buy a toboggan
  • wire a dollhouse for real electric lighting
  • train the dog to play frisbee
  • spend the summer in a thatched cottage on the Dingle Peninsula