Alain de Botton Audio & Video

Mr. de Botton discussed his book The Consolations of Philosophy, published by Pantheon Books.

For most people the word work is synonymous with jobs, labor and occupations. The things we do to pay the rent. The mundane routine can often overshadow the nuances of the work that we do.

Alain de Botton examines our ideas of success and failure -- and questions the assumptions underlying these two judgments.

This dazzling journey through the philosophy and psychology of architecture explores the indelible connection between our identities and our locations. Alain de Botton argues that our environment heavily influences who we can be.

Few activities seem to promise us as much happiness as going travelling: taking off for somewhere else, somewhere far from home, a place with more interesting weather, customs, and landscapes....

In The Consolations of Philosophy, Alain de Botton has performed a stunning feat. He has transformed the arcane into something accessible and entertaining, something useful and kind.

Drawing from Proust's letters, essays, and fiction, de Botton transforms Proust's life and work into a no-nonsense guide to life.

We spend most of our waking lives at work - in occupations often chosen by our unthinking younger selves. And yet we rarely ask ourselves how we got there or what our occupations mean to us.

This is a book about an almost universal anxiety that rarely gets mentioned directly: an anxiety about what others think of us, about whether we’re judged a success or a failure, a winner or a loser.