Composer, songwriter, performer Mark Mallman has spent the last 20 years releasing albums, touring, and becoming a Minneapolis music icon. His expansive catalog of infinitely catchy and masterfully orchestrated songs has rocked the airwaves worldwide. Now, Mark reaches a new level of creativity and intimacy with his debut book ‘The Happiness Playlist,’ a memoir written about the six months he spent listening exclusively to feel-good music as an experiment to make his way through varying bouts of grief brought on by the death of his mother, the end of a relationship and winter in the frozen city of Minneapolis.

‘The Happiness Playlist’ is a true story of a soul beset by grief and healed by music. It’s an uplifting memoir of uncommon grace and compassion, with writing that will connect with anyone who’s ever hung onto a song like a lifeboat. Mark’s actual Happiness Playlist of the songs he listened to through his grief and depression is listed in the back of the book. There is also a page for readers to write out their own Happiness Playlist. In the book’s foreword, author Chuck Klosterman describes Mark Mallman as “legitimately original, exclusively motivated by a desire to conquer the strange obstructions he builds inside his mind.” Of the book, Mark’s longtime friend and sometime collaborator Craig Finn (The Hold Steady) says, “‘The Happiness Playlist’ is funny, thought-provoking, and just plain helpful. It’s the best book on grief that I’ve ever picked up. This examination of music listening as a method to combat heartbreak is a joy to read. You need it.”

‘The Happiness Playlist’ is out March 19 on Think Piece Publishing and can be pre-ordered at Amazon.