After service in Vietnam as a surgeon during the height of the war, Dr. Livingston returned to the U.S. and began work as a psychiatrist. In that capacity, he has listened to people talk about their lives--what works, what doesn't, and the limitless ways (most of them self-inflicted) we have found to be unhappy. Out of a lifetime of experience, Livingston has extracted thirty bedrock truths, which he illuminates in a series of carefully hewn essays,...