ALEXANDRA STODDARD is a philosopher of contemporary living, an interior designer, and author of many best selling books, including the classic Living a Beautiful Life: 500 Ways to Add Elegance, Order, Beauty and Joy to Every Day of Your Life now celebrating its 25th anniversary, and Choosing Happiness: Keys to a Joyful Life, in a fifteenth printing. Things I Want My Daughters to Know: A Small Book About the Big Issues in Life was introduced at the 2004 National Book Festival in Washington, DC, and is currently in its fifteenth printing.

Time Alive: Celebrate Your Life Every Day was also chosen for the 2006 National Book Festival. In January 2007 HarperCollins published her 25th book, You Are Your Choices: 50 Ways to Live the Good Life, now taking off with a spectacular launch ... "New Year, New You"!!

With her 25th book, lifestyle philosopher Alexandra Stoddard offers simple steps for taking charge of your life – your way. In brief essays filled with useful examples and optimism, she reveals 50 choices you can make to live joyfully in pursuit of what is true, good, and beautiful. Her essays help us trust ourselves (“Intuition is your guiding light”), stay steady in a storm (“Your choices count most in a crisis”), embrace the new (“Accept opportunity”), address unfinished business (“Have as few regrets as possible”), surround ourselves with delights (“Redefine what is beautiful”), and remember to have fun (“Cheap thrills are thrilling”).

As a pioneering writer and lecturer on personal happiness for the past twenty years, Alexandra has inspired millions to break the “rules” and pursue fulfillment. Now, as scientists have begun to discover the benefits of living a happy life, Alexandra provides practical ways to live happily every day. She puts us in charge of our choices, reminding us that we always have a choice about what we think, feel, and do. When we are true to ourselves, we can fly above stress and conflict, contented and confident that we are on the right path.

Every choice you make is an opportunity to delight in life. You Are Your Choices offers insight and companionship every step of the way.

Alexandra Stoddard’s unique insights reveal the small but significant things that we can do to change our attitude, heart and environment for the better. Her mantra is “Happiness is the first principle of life. Love & Live Happy.” Observers say Stoddard has hit a nerve in the public psyche with her positive message of enthusiasm leading to the active joy of living fully every moment. She is recognized as a pioneer of the "Happiness Movement". Alexandra continues to celebrate her "Happiness Weekends" across the country.

Stoddard’s original theme of living beautifully and spiritually every day has resulted in appearances on Oprah; with Barbara Walters; Katie Couric on the Today Show; the Christopher Lowell Show; as host of the Home & Garden television series “Homes Across America;” and profiles in major magazines and newspapers worldwide.

Alexandra Stoddard’s writing, seminars, illustrated talks and design work contain a positive personal philosophy of ways to live a beautiful and happy life, laced with grace, wit and daily rituals, the first to write about ritualizing every day, with celebrations and ceremonies at home – elevating our daily lives into the art of living beautifully moment to moment.
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When Alexandra was 16 years old, her aunt, Elizabeth Johns, a renowned international social worker, took her around the world, exposing her to architecture, design and beauty; also sorrow and suffering. This eye-opening tour gave depth to her future design and literary career and enlarged her understanding of human nature and our universal search for meaning and purpose in our lives.

In 1963 Alexandra went to work for the doyenne of American interior design, Eleanor McMillen Brown, becoming her special assistant and close friend. Thirty years ago, after her mentor retired, Stoddard started her own international design firm, Alexandra Stoddard Incorporated, with Mrs. Brown’s blessing.

Alexandra Stoddard lives on Carnegie Hill, Manhattan, New York City, and in Stonington Village, Connecticut, with her husband Peter Megargee Brown, also an author. She is the mother of two daughters and has three grandchildren.