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Alain de Botton
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TED Talk with Alain de Botton
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Office Sex: Just Part of Being Human? - Alain de Botton
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Alain de Botton

Goodreads Author


Born
in Zurich, Switzerland
Website

Genre
Nonfiction

Influences
Seneca, Marcel Proust, Montaigne, Stendhal, Gustave Flaubert

Member Since
June 2007

URL


Alain de Botton is a writer and television producer who lives in London and aims to make philosophy relevant to everyday life. He can be contacted by email directly via www.alaindebotton.com

He is a writer of essayistic books, which refer both to his own experiences and ideas- and those of artists, philosophers and thinkers. It's a style of writing that has been termed a 'philosophy of everyday life.'

His first book, Essays in Love [titled On Love in the US], minutely analysed the process of falling in and out of love. The style of the book was unusual, because it mixed elements of a novel together with reflections and analyses normally found in a piece of non-fiction. It's a book of which many readers are still fondest.

Bibliography:
* Essays ...more

Combine Editions

Average rating: 3.9 · 261,584 ratings · 26,519 reviews · 165 distinct works • Similar authors
The Course of Love
4.01 avg rating — 49,119 ratings — published 2016 — 33 editions
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On Love
3.96 avg rating — 34,856 ratings — published 1993 — 129 editions
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The Consolations of Philosophy
4.01 avg rating — 33,844 ratings — published 2000 — 119 editions
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The Art of Travel
3.82 avg rating — 26,029 ratings — published 2002 — 87 editions
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Status Anxiety
3.89 avg rating — 21,709 ratings — published 2004 — 88 editions
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How Proust Can Change Your ...
3.76 avg rating — 18,557 ratings — published 1998 — 8 editions
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The Architecture of Happiness
3.86 avg rating — 14,464 ratings — published 2006 — 92 editions
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Religion for Atheists: A No...
3.66 avg rating — 11,843 ratings — published 2011 — 75 editions
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The School of Life: An Emot...
4.23 avg rating — 9,572 ratings — published 2019 — 21 editions
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The Pleasures and Sorrows o...
3.62 avg rating — 6,031 ratings — published 2008 — 60 editions
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Related News

Adolescents who can't get a date are in a uniquely privileged position: They will have the perfect chance to get grounding in world literature....
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43 likes · 4 comments
Quotes by Alain de Botton  (?)
Quotes are added by the Goodreads community and are not verified by Goodreads. (Learn more)

“Most of what makes a book 'good' is that we are reading it at the right moment for us.”
― Alain de Botton
tags: books, reading, right-moment, timing
876 likes
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“Intimacy is the capacity to be rather weird with someone - and finding that that's ok with them.”
― Alain de Botton
tags: intimacy, relationships, weirdness
603 likes
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“The moment we cry in a film is not when things are sad but when they turn out to be more beautiful than we expected them to be.”
― Alain de Botton
tags: emotions, film, humanity, philosophy
536 likes
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Polls

21563
Alain de Botton is writing A Week At The Airport A Heathrow Diary live at Terminal 5 of Heathrow Airport the week of August 17, 2009. What do you think?

Cool
 
  131 votes, 72.0%

Silly airport publicity stunt
 
  27 votes, 14.8%

Weird
 
  15 votes, 8.2%

Something else (tell us in comments!)
 
  9 votes, 4.9%

182 total votes
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Topics Mentioning This Author

topics posts views last activity  
The Next Best Boo...: Jason's 2009 Good (and not so good) Reads 26 591 Nov 14, 2009 06:03PM  
Challenge: 50 Books: Nonodisco's 2010 50 2 85 Feb 06, 2010 07:44PM  
The Life of a Boo...: Jennifer N's 2011 TBR Reading Challenge 5 28 Dec 31, 2010 03:20PM  
Challenge: 50 Books: Gozde V's 50 books for 2011! 39 174 Sep 21, 2011 06:49AM  
The Seasonal Read...: This topic has been closed to new comments. Summer Challenge 2012: Completed Tasks - DO NOT DELETE ANY POSTS IN THIS TOPIC 2637 934 Aug 31, 2012 09:02PM  
UK Book Club: Em's Genre Challenge 107 179 Dec 13, 2012 08:53AM  
The Most Awesome ...: * Adding Folders for Your Favourite Authors 12 31 Jan 23, 2013 10:39AM  
The Seasonal Read...: 20.8 – It’s My Birthday! - Sue Q's task: Beginnings and Endings 18 85 Jul 23, 2013 02:53PM  

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Alain’s Groups

38492 Alain de Botton — 184 members — last activity Oct 27, 2010 02:00PM
A chance to discuss the work of Alain de Botton, especially the latest title, A Week at the Airport. Dates, October 18-24

Alain’s Friend Comments

Comments (showing 1-2)    post a comment »
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message 2: by Laura
Nov 03, 2011 06:47AM

Laura Lee Thank you for accepting my friendship. That you have written so many insightful books and you are my age is a constant source depresses me to no end.


message 1: by Iris
Mar 31, 2009 11:02AM

Iris Félicitations - what a tantalizing review of your new book in the Economist. Subtil plaisir que celui de l'attente de cette lectrice américaine pour la sortie du livre ici aux Etats-Unis.


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