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Alain de Botton
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The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work
Автор: Alain de Botton Жанр: Daedalus Books Издательство: Daedalus Books Год: 2009 Страниц: 329 Дата загрузки: 15 декабря 20112012-09-17
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We spend most of our waking lives at work — in occupations often chosen by our unthinking sixteen-year-old selves. And yet we rarely ask ourselves how we got there or what it might mean for us. Equally intrigued by work's pleasures and its pains, Alain de Botton here heads out into the under-charted worlds of the office, the factory, the fishing fleet and the logistics centre, ears and eyes open to the beauty, interest and sheer strangeness of the modern workplace. Along the way he tries to answer some of the most urgent questions we can ask about work: Why do we do it? What makes it pleasurable? What is its meaning? And why do we daily exhaust not only ourselves but also the planet? Characteristically lucid, witty and inventive, Alain de Botton's 'song for occupations' is a celebration and exploration of an aspect of life which is all too often ignored and yet as central to us as our love lives.
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Art as Therapy
Автор: Alain de Botton Жанр: Phaidon Press Издательство: Phaidon Press Год: 2013 Страниц: 240 Дата загрузки: 23 декабря 20152015-10-20
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There is widespread agreement that art is 'very important' — but it can be remarkably hard to say quite why. Yet if art is to enjoy its privileges, it has to be able to demonstrate its relevance in understandable ways to the widest possible audience. Alain de Botton and John Armstrong have a firm belief that art can help us with our most intimate and ordinary dilemmas, asking: What can I do about the difficulties in my relationships? Why is my work not more satisfying? Why do other people seem to have a more glamorous life? Why is politics so depressing? The purpose of this book is to introduce a new method of interpreting art: art as a form of therapy. It's the authors' contention that certain art works provide powerful solutions to our problems, but that in order for this potential to be released, the audience's attention has to be directed towards it in a new way (which they demonstrate), rather than towards the more normal historical or stylistic concerns with which art books and museum captions are traditionally associated. The authors propose that the squeamish belief that art should be 'for art's sake' has unnecessarily held back art from revealing its latent therapeutic potential. This book involves reframing and recontextualising a series of art works from across the ages and genres, so that they can be approached as tools for the resolution of difficult issues in individual life.
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Essays In Love
Автор: Alain de Botton Жанр: Macmillan Publishers Издательство: Macmillan Publishers Год: 2015 Страниц: 224 Дата загрузки: 13 августа 20172018-09-30
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Essays in Love will appeal to anyone who has ever been in a relationship or confused about love. The book charts the progress of a love affair from the first kiss to argument and reconciliation, from intimacy and tenderness to the onset of anxiety and heartbreak. The work's genius lies in the way it minutely analyses emotions we've all felt before but have perhaps never understood so well: it includes a chapter on the anxieties of when and how to say 'I love you' and another on the challenges of disagreeing with someone else's taste in shoes. While gripping the reader with the talent of a great novelist, de Botton brings a philosopher's sensibility to his analysis of the emotions of love, resulting in a genre-breaking book that is at once touching and thought-provoking.
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The Art of Travel
Автор: Alain de Botton Жанр: Penguin Group Издательство: Penguin Group Год: 2003 Страниц: 272 Дата загрузки: 27 октрября 20092006-04-24
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Few activites 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. But although we are inundated with advice on where to travel to, we seldom ask why we go and how we might become more fulfilled by doing so. With the help of a selection of writers, artists and thinkers — including Flaubert, Edward Hopper, Wordsworth and Van Gogh — Alain de Botton's bestselling «The Art of Travel» provides invaluable insights into everything from holiday romance to hotel minibars, airports to sightseeing. The perfect antidote to those guides that tell us what to do when we get there, «The Art of Travel» tries to explain why we really went in the first place — and helpfully suggests how we might be happier on our journeys.
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Status Anxiety
Автор: Alain de Botton Жанр: Penguin Group Издательство: Penguin Group Год: 2005 Страниц: 320 Дата загрузки: 18 мая 20082006-12-10
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We all worry about what others think of us. We all long to succeed and fear failure. We all suffer — to a greater or lesser degree, usually privately and with embarrassment — from status anxiety. For the first time, Alain de Botton gives a name to this universal condition and sets out to investigate both its origins and possible solutions. He looks at history, philosophy, economics, art and politics — and reveals the many ingenious ways that great minds have overcome their worries. The result is a book that is not only entertaining and thought-provoking — but genuinely wise and helpful as well.
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A Week At The Airport: A Heathrow Diary
Автор: Alain de Botton Жанр: Profile Books Издательство: Profile Books Год: 2009 Страниц: 112 Дата загрузки: 05 июня 20112011-07-23
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In the summer of 2009, Alain de Botton will be invited by the owners of Heathrow airport to become their first ever Writer in Residence. He will be installed in the middle of Terminal 5 on a raised platform with a laptop connected to screens, enabling passengers to see what he is writing and to come and share their stories. He will meet travellers from around the world, and will be given unprecedented access to wander the airport and speak with everyone from window cleaners and baggage handlers to air traffic controllers and cabin crew. Working with the renowned documentary photographer Richard Baker, de Botton will produce an extraordinary meditation upon the nature of place, time, and our daily lives. He will explore the magical and the mundane, personal and collective experiences and the interactions of travellers and workers all over this familiar but mysterious site. Like all airports, Heathrow (the 15th century village of Heath Row lies beneath the short stay car park) is a 'non-place' that we by definition want to leave, but it also provides a window into many worlds — through the thousands of people it dispatches every day. A Week at the Airport is sure to delight de Botton's large following, and anyone interested in the stories behind the way we live.
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Essays in Love
Автор: Alain de Botton Жанр: Picador Издательство: Picador Год: 2006 Страниц: 224 Дата загрузки: 09 февраля 20082009-04-29
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Taking in Aristotle, Wittgenstein, history, religion, and Groucho Marx, the author charts the progress of a love affair from the first kiss to argument and reconciliation, from intimacy and tenderness to the onset of anxiety and heartbreak. He attempts to define the age-old dilemmas of the heart.
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