Can a really really expensive designer hand bag make you happy? Twelve years ago I bought a really really expensive designer hand bag because I thought it would make me happy. 

The Handbag of Happiness (and other misunderstandings, misdemenours and misadventures) is a collection of rollicking, defiant, punked-up real-life stories where self-improvement is satire and life-changing moments are found in the absurdity of our mysterious little lives. From The Bathing Costume of Calamity to The Apron Strings of Lament and The Brassiere of Lovelessness, Alannah Hill shares hilarious spine tingling wisdom, and in her own imperfect way, writes how she overcame adversity (and sometimes didn’t) despite her best intentions.

In a world gasping from self-help clichés, rebirting encounter groups, Kundalini  yoga and new-puritan rules, Alannah flouts political correctness like never before. Irreverent, provocative, self-deprecating and witty, Alannah writes what others dare to think.

Flirting with misfortune, disaster and dire predicaments, and with philosophical moments of gothic satire and high-heeled slip-ups, she reveals the black humour in modern-day chaos. Alannah opens her bejewelled handbag of happiness and shows how being a little bit wrong can sometimes be so very, very right.