Book Details

"I loved this beautiful beautiful book. It's tender and compassionate, written with exquisite care and verve, and so so SO funny" (Marian Keyes)

"Chandra is a delightful creation: peevish, intolerant, intellectually exacting, unwittingly eccentric, nerdy, needy let lovable. The book, like its picaresque hero, is a one-off" (Patricia Nicol Sunday Times)

"This brilliant and eloquent novel, which puts into words so many unutterable annoyances, is a sort of Zen satire in which tolerance and understanding mingle with hilarious criticism of contemporary mores. It?s a wonderful read" (Wendy Holden Daily Mail)

"Rajeev Balasubramanyam gently pokes fun at the modern fondness for positivity, but tells a disarmingly positive story... The writing is elegant and witty and the comedy is always underpinned with humanity; a life without bliss is no life, and the gradual dawning of Chandra?s self-awareness is genuinely uplifting" (Kate Saunders The Times)

"Balances satire and self-enlightenment... a surprisingly soulful family tale that echoes Jonathan Franzen?s Corrections in its witty exploration of three children trying to free themselves from the influence of their parents" (Ben East Observer)

'I loved this beautiful book. It's tender and compassionate, written with exquisite care and verve, and so so SO funny' MARIAN KEYES

Professor Chandra is about to embark on the trip of a lifetime.

In the moments after the bicycle accident, he doesn?t see his life flash before his eyes, but his life?s work.

He?s just narrowly missed out on the Nobel Prize (again) and even though he knows he should get straight back to his pie charts, his doctor has other ideas.

All this work is killing him. He needs to take a break, start enjoying himself. In short, says his doctor (who is from California), Professor Chandra should just follow his bliss.

And so he sets out to crack the most complex problem of all: the secret to his own happiness.