The Book of Good Habits: Simple and Creative Ways to Enrich Your Life

The Book of Good Habits contains nearly 2,000 simple and creative ways to enrich your life. Dirk Mathison uses wit, humor, satire and a dash of cynicism to blend his own good habit recommendations with those of a diverse array of philosophers and fools, from Confucius and Abraham Lincoln to James Brown and Groucho Marx.

The habits range from the practical (keep a pair of tennis shoes at the office so you can take a quick run or power walk during breaks) to the sublime (drink green tea from a blue cup) to the ridiculous (slap up—if you must slap, make it a habit to slap someone who makes more money and is more prominent than yourself).

The Book of Good Habits includes habits for the mind, health, safety, sex, love, friendship and parenting. At the heart of Mathison's book is the belief that if we change our daily behavior, our lives will change as well. And that it is through our habits that we give life to our ideas and our ideals.

So chew on a bit of parsley for clean breath, use candles even when there's no special occasion, and enrich your life with The Book of Good Habits.

Dirk Mathison is a veteran journalist and the former West Coast Editor of People magazine. He makes his home in the Los Angeles area.