Today is World Smile Day, commemorating Harvey Ball, a commercial artist from Worcester, Massachusetts who created the smiley face in 1963.  Scientific studies prove your smile can reduce your stress and lower your blood pressure as well as your heart rate.  If you don’t feel like smiling outwardly today, smile inwardly, and adopt that enigmatic Mona Lisa upward tilt to your lips. You will feel better and everyone will wonder what you are thinking,

Looking for books to make me smile, I thought of a few I’ve read.  Click on titles in blue to read my review.

• Where’d You Go, Bernadette  by Maria Semple
• News of the World by Paulette Jiles
• Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein
• Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
• Assume the Worst by Carl Hiaasen and Roz Chast
• Sacre Bleu by Christopher Moore
• Lunatics by Dave Barry and Alan Zweibel

Checking on a few of the authors, I found some of their new books, guaranteed to crack a smile: Dave Barry’s Lessons from Lucy: The Simple Joys of an Old Happy Dog, Carl Hiassen’s Razor Girl, and Christopher Moore’s Noir: A Novel.

Right now I am smiling as I read Julia Sonneborn’s By the Book, a modern retelling of Jane Austen’s classic Persuasion set at a university. “Professor Anne Corey is stunned to learn that her ex-fiance has been hired as Fairfax College’s new president. Her troubles are only beginning….”

Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh, author of Calm, Ease, Smile, Breathe, says:

“Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy,,,”

What makes you smile?