Lessons from Lucy

Laugh-out-loud funny. I’m sure there are people who saw me walking my dog while listening to this and who now think of me as “that crazy lady.” Dave Barry narrates the audio book himself, so we hear it all in his own voice. The story in the intro about the two dogs he used to have and the patio door that didn’t blow down in the hurricane is priceless.

For dog lovers who worry about reading something with an old dog in it: Lucy was still going strong at the end of the book.

Seven lessons for living a happier life. It’s not that there’s anything new–anything we don’t all already know–it’s that we need to apply the lessons to our lives. It’s good stuff, packaged in Dave Barry’s stories about himself and his family and his good old dog.

1. Make new friends and keep the ones you have
2. Don’t stop having fun, and if you’ve stopped, start having fun
3. Pay attention to the people you love, not later, but now
4. Let go of your anger unless it’s about something really important, which it hardly ever is
5. Try not to judge people by their looks, and don’t obsess over your own
6. Don’t let your happiness depend on things. They don’t make you truly happy, and you’ll never have enough.
7. Don’t lie unless you have a really good reason, which you probably don’t

And then a touching, emotional chapter after the epilogue, in which life deals out another Lucy lesson:
Be grateful for what you have.