Alain de Botton

Alain de Botton was born in Zurich, Switzerland in 1969 and now lives in London. He is a writer of essayistic books that have been described as a “philosophy of everyday life.” He’s written on love, travel, architecture and literature. His books have been bestsellers in 30 countries. Alain also started and helps to run a school in London called The School of Life, dedicated to a new vision of education. Alain’s newest book is published in April 2009 and is titled The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work.

Alain started writing at a young age. His first book, Essays in Love (titled On Love in the US), was published when he was twenty-three. It minutely analysed the process of falling in and out of love, in a style that mixed elements of a novel with reflections and analyses normally found in non-fiction. It remains one of his most beloved works and has sold two million copies worldwide.

It was with How Proust Can Change Your Life that Alain’s work reached a truly global audience. The book was particularly successful in the United States, where its ironic self-help framing combined with an analysis of one of the most revered yet unread works in Western literature struck a chord. It was followed by The Consolations of Philosophy, which in many ways acted as a companion volume. Though sometimes described as popularisations, these books attempt to develop original ideas—about friendship, art, envy, desire and inadequacy—using the thoughts of earlier thinkers such as Seneca and Montaigne.

Alain then returned to a more lyrical, personal style of writing. In The Art of Travel, he explored the psychology of travel—how we imagine places before seeing them, how we remember beauty, and what happens when we encounter landscapes, hotels or countryside settings. In Status Anxiety, he examined a common but rarely discussed fear: how others judge our success or failure. In The Architecture of Happiness, he explored questions of beauty and ugliness in architecture, drawing inspiration even from the ordinary surroundings near his home in West London.

The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work followed Alain as he travelled the world with a photographer, exploring people in their workplaces and reflecting on the meaning of work: why we do it, how it might become more fulfilling, and what makes a meaningful life.

In the summer of 2009, Alain was appointed Heathrow’s first Writer-in-Residence and wrote about the experience in A Week at the Airport.

Aside from writing, de Botton has been involved in producing television documentaries and helps run a production company, Seneca Productions.

In 2008 he helped launch a miniature “university” called The School of Life, which aims to explore life’s big questions and help people live better. He also helped start the organisation Living Architecture, which commissions modern architectural works for public rental across the UK. In 2009 he was made an honorary fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects in recognition of his contributions to architecture.

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