Hector and the Search for Happiness

Can we learn how to be happy? Hector is a successful young psychiatrist. He's very good at treating patients in real need of his help. But many people he sees have no health problems: they're just deeply dissatisfied with their lives. Hector can't do much for them, and it's beginning to depress him. So when a patient tells him he looks in need of a holiday, Hector decides to set off round the world to find out what makes people everywhere happy (and sad), and whether there is such a thing as the secret of true happiness... Over two million readers worldwide have engaged with psychiatrist François Lelord's modern fable. Narrated with deceptive simplicity, its perceptive observations on happiness offer us the chance to reflect on the contentment we all look for in our own lives.



François Lelord studied and practiced psychiatry in Paris, and was a consultant for companies interested in reducing stress for their employees. The huge success of Hector and the Search for Happiness led him to spend more time writing and travelling, ending up in Vietnam during the Sars epidemic. There he practiced psychiatry for a French NGO and met his future wife Phuong. Today they live in Thailand. Hector and the Search for Happiness was adapted for film in 2015, starring Simon Pegg and Rosamund Pike.