Profane Waste
Description
Jewels buried in a grave, cigarettes smoked in $100 bills, champagne poured into a bathtub--these perverse, irrational acts are also somehow thrilling. Profane Waste explores the workings of an unacknowledged taboo: the taboo against willful dissipation. Dana Hoey, an acclaimed photographer appearing here in her first book, presents a series of 30 haunting images that are at once ultra-real and uncanny. Bestselling biographer and social critic Gretchen Rubin uses lucid analysis and explosive examples--the actions of Rauschenberg, Jesus, Ivan Boesky, Thoreau and Goebbels, among others--to demonstrate the power of the title concept. Together, Hoey's photographs and Rubin's provocative arguments create a shock of recognition: they lay bare intentions that stand outside the conventional goals of acquisition and accumulation.Product Details
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About the Author
I'm the author of the New York Times bestsellers The Happiness Project, "Happier at Home" and "Better Than Before." I write about my experiences as I test-drive the wisdom of the ages, current scientific studies, and lessons from popular culture about happiness, habits, and human nature. My next book will hit the shelves in summer 2017: "The Four Tendencies: The Surprising Truth about the Four Hidden Personality Types That Drive Everything We Do."
Find out your Tendency--are you an Upholder, Questioner, Obliger, or Rebel?--when you take the free quiz at GretchenRubin.com.
Subscribe to my award-winning weekly podcast "Happier with Gretchen Rubin" (more than 1 million downloads each month) and hear my sister and I discuss strategies and tips for how to make your daily life happier. I also created an app to help people harness the power of the Four Tendencies. Learn more at BetterApp.us or search the app store for "Better Gretchen Rubin."
My previous books include a bestselling biography of Winston Churchill, Forty Ways to Look at Winston Churchill," and one of John Kennedy, "Forty Ways to Look at JFK." My first book, "Power Money Fame S..: A User's Guide," is social criticism in the guise of a user's manual. I wrote "Profane Waste" in collaboration with artist Dana Hoey. I've also written three dreadful novels that are safely locked away in a drawer.
Before turning to writing, I had a career in law. A graduate of Yale and Yale Law School, I clerked for Justice Sandra Day O'Connor and was editor-in-chief of the Yale Law Journal. I live in New York City with my husband and two daughters.
