Alain de Botton has performed a stunning feat: he has transformed arcane philosophy into something accessible and entertaining, useful and kind. Drawing on the work of six of the world's most brilliant thinkers, de Botton has arranged a panoply of wisdom to guide us through our most common problems. From the frustration of misplacing your keys to the sadness of losing a loved one, the writings of Seneca can offer consolation. For the agony of not having enough money, Epicurus has a solution that everyone can afford. If your ...
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Alain de Botton has performed a stunning feat: he has transformed arcane philosophy into something accessible and entertaining, useful and kind. Drawing on the work of six of the world's most brilliant thinkers, de Botton has arranged a panoply of wisdom to guide us through our most common problems. From the frustration of misplacing your keys to the sadness of losing a loved one, the writings of Seneca can offer consolation. For the agony of not having enough money, Epicurus has a solution that everyone can afford. If your life is beset by difficulty after difficulty, wise advice may be found in the words of Nietzsche. The Consolations of Philosophy is smart, lucid, and pleasing, a rare sort of book that wonderfully fulfills the promise of its title.
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Add this copy of The Consolations of Philosophy to cart. $39.64, good condition, Sold by Bonita rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Newport Coast, CA, UNITED STATES, published 2006 by Blackstone Audiobooks.
Alain De Botton has a gift, namely that of making relevant and easy to understand topics that are not normally tackled by the average layman. In "The Architecture of Happiness" he takes us on a journey through the fascinating world of architecture, showing us why we respond to it the way we do and how much of it is below the level of consciousness. Here, on the other hand, Alain strolls through the world of philosophy, choosing such big names as Socrates, Epicureus, Schopenhauer and others to speak to us about the angst, the fascination and the frustrations of this life by unwrapping for us the way the great philosophers thought about it.
Even if you've never taken a philosophy course in your life and generally don't care to, you will find something here to show you that philosophers aren't crazy men with too much time on their hands. Even if they most often get so wordy and complicated that we can not longer follow them, they are ultimately struggling with the very same questions that you and I do.
Very readable and good fun!
