Best-selling author Gretchen Rubin talks happiness in KC

Hoping to pass a few life lessons onto her young adult daughters, best-selling author and Kansas City native Gretchen Rubin created a book of “simple truths.”

Probably best known for The Happiness Project, published nearly 15 years ago, Rubin has since penned several books, but in her latest endeavor Secrets of Adulthood, she created a book of aphorisms – a large truth expressed in just a few choice words. The impetus behind Secrets was a desire to pass along the “secrets of adulthood,” or lessons that she has learned over the years – often the hard way – to her daughters, Rubin says. 

And perhaps by thinking about these lessons, writing about them and then consolidating them into one-liners, the project turned book would also serve as a personal reminder of said lessons, she says. “All too often,” Rubin writes, “I found myself discovering the same lessons, over and over.”

Rubin, who went to Pembroke Hill School before heading to Yale for college and law school, will be coming back to her home town this week and speaking Thursday night, April 3, at Unity Temple on the Plaza (707 W 47th St., KCMO) at an event hosted by Rainy Day Books, from 7 to 8 pm. To learn More about the event and ticket information, click here: Rainy Day Books.

“I love Kansas City and I love coming to visit,” says Rubin, whose father still lives in KC.

Smaller than your average book, the pocket-size Secrets of Adulthood is something that you could take with you and refer to when needed. “Sort of a reference book that just might help you get through your day,” she says. Knowing that she wrote it with her daughters in mind, it’s a way for Rubin to be by their side even when she’s not.

“I wanted to hand off these things that I learned,” says Rubin, who will be doing just that Thursday night. 

Rubin, whose happiness journey began with her break-out Happiness Project, does much more than books now. She has the Happier with Gretchen podcast that she hosts along with her sister Elizabeth Craft, a newsletter and many other projects. To learn more, check out gretchenrubin.com.

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