Books by Alain de Botton

Alain de Botton’s career to date has been spent writing books that tackle questions of everyday life. They refer both to his own experiences and ideas – and those of artists, philosophers and thinkers of the past. His work has been described as a ‘philoso

THE COURSE OF LOVE by Alain de Botton
by Alain de Botton
FICTION & LITERATURE
Released: June 14, 2016
"A philosopher of the everyday can't help but write marriage as a primer."
More treatise than novel, this book takes a forensic approach to marriage. Read full book review >
THE NEWS by Alain de Botton
by Alain de Botton
NON-FICTION
Released: Feb. 11, 2014
"How does news shape our thoughts and lives? That's a significant question, but de Botton's musings fall short of a serious response."
Philosophical gadfly de Botton (How to Think More About Sex, 2012, etc.) has ruminated, delightfully and often incisively, on the meaning of status, architecture, travel, Proust, sex, work, religion and love. Now he turns his attention to the news industry. Read full book review >
HOW TO THINK MORE ABOUT SEX by Alain de Botton
by Alain de Botton
NON-FICTION
Released: Jan. 1, 2013
"A well-rounded examination of the ways we can marry intelligent thought and physical pleasure."
It's not the quantity of thought about sex, but rather the quality of thought about sex. Read full book review >
RELIGION FOR ATHEISTS by Alain de Botton
by Alain de Botton
NON-FICTION
Released: March 6, 2012
"Unlike The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work and The Architecture of Happiness, this installment in the author's oeuvre is shallow and glib."
De Botton (A Week at the Airport, 2010, etc.) suggests ways a secular society can provide the benefits and comfort its citizens once derived from faith. Read full book review >
A WEEK AT THE AIRPORT by Alain de Botton
by Alain de Botton
BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR
Released: Sept. 21, 2010
"Enjoyable and informative—perfect in-flight reading."
An unfiltered meditation on the airport, a space that de Botton (The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work, 2009, etc.) argues is representative of humanity's philosophical outlook. Read full book review >
THE PLEASURES AND SORROWS OF WORK by Alain de Botton
Kirkus Star
by Alain de Botton
NON-FICTION
Released: June 2, 2009
"A luminous photo-essay from a consistently fresh and noble writer."
Novelist/essayist de Botton (The Architecture of Happiness, 2006, etc.) turns his inquisitive eye to the business of work. Read full book review >
THE ARCHITECTURE OF HAPPINESS by Alain de Botton
Kirkus Star
by Alain de Botton
NON-FICTION
Released: Oct. 3, 2006
"A lyrical and generously illustrated monograph about the intimate relationship between our buildings and ourselves. (To be a three-part PBS series, Fall 2006)"
Graceful disquisition on the significance of architecture, by a novelist and essayist whose eclectic interests range from How Proust Can Change Your Life (1997) to Status Anxiety (2004). Read full book review >
STATUS ANXIETY by Alain de Botton
Kirkus Star
by Alain de Botton
NON-FICTION
Released: June 1, 2004
"An intelligent breath of fresh air, sans the usual ax-grinding."
A novelist (Kiss and Tell, 1996, etc.) with a flair for gleaning self-help from across the ages (The Consolations of Philosophy, 2000) cleverly deconstructs and demystifies that sinking feeling of material inferiority. Read full book review >
THE CONSOLATIONS OF PHILOSOPHY by Alain de Botton
by Alain de Botton
BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR
Released: April 28, 2000
"Congenial, refreshing, original—and mercifully succinct—de Botton may well achieve the impossible by making philosophy popular."
Having changed lives with the help of a French writer (How Proust Can Change Your Life, 1997), de Botton now seeks to offer those lives needed consolation—and specific advice—with the writings of some of the world's most illustrious philosophers. Read full book review >
HOW PROUST CAN CHANGE YOUR LIFE by Alain de Botton
by Alain de Botton
BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR
Released: May 14, 1997
"For a painless crib, de Botton's tongue-in-cheek tract beats out Harold Bloom on the Western canon and David Denby on Great Books without even a madeleine break."
For the era of the self-help bestseller, novelist de Botton delivers a witty, entertaining literary appreciation of the author of Remembrance of Things Past. Read full book review >
KISS AND TELL by Alain de Botton
by Alain de Botton
FICTION & LITERATURE
Released: June 10, 1996
"Having stuck with this one-joke plot that is, like its narrator, amusing and tedious by turns, readers will understand her fond impatience all too well."
A young, self-centered British swain vows to get to know the next woman he meets better than she knows herself, in de Botton's self-consciously coy follow-up to On Love (1993) and The Romantic Movement (1995). ``It took me a long time to . . . understand how someone could have been so un-self-aware and at the same time so self-obsessed,'' reads the narrator's most recent Dear John letter. ``You said you loved me, but a narcissist can't love anyone but himself.'' Miffed by the accusation, de Botton's intellectual hero determines not just to pay more attention to the next woman he meets but to immerse himself in her life as assiduously as a biographer studies his subject. Read full book review >
THE ROMANTIC MOVEMENT by Alain de Botton
by Alain de Botton
Released: June 15, 1995
"If de Botton's little drawings are often vapid, he's still a promising writer who entertains glibly more than he falls flat."
A sometimes diverting, sometimes loquacious and cutesy second novel from de Botton (On Love (1993), who once again combines a twentysomething off-again-on-again relationship with various sorts of mock-serious disquisitions on love and other topics. Read full book review >
ON LOVE by Alain de Botton
by Alain de Botton
Released: Nov. 1, 1993
"A very promising debut. (First printing of 25,000)"
A tour-de-force pleasure of a first novel that takes a conventional love story and textures it with philosophical ruminations, ironic subtitles, and various sorts of playfulness, including pencil drawings. Read full book review >