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Essays In Love
 
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Essays In Love (Paperback)

by Alain de Botton (Author)
3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
RRP: £7.99
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Essays In Love + The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work + How Proust Can Change Your Life
Price For All Three: £20.00

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Product details

  • Paperback: 224 pages
  • Publisher: Picador (20 Jan 2006)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0330440780
  • ISBN-13: 978-0330440783
  • Product Dimensions: 19.2 x 13 x 1.8 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 4,362 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in these categories:

    #1 in  Books > Fiction > Authors, A-Z > B > Botton, Alain de
    #7 in  Books > Health, Family & Lifestyle > Relationships > Love & Romance
    #84 in  Books > Health, Family & Lifestyle > Families & Parents

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Product Description

Product Description

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 analyses of the emotions of love, resulting in a genre-breaking book that is at once touching and thought-provoking.

‘The book’s success has much to do with its beautifully modelled sentences, its wry humour and its unwavering deadpan respect for its reader’s intelligence . . . full of keen observation and flashes of genuine lyricism, acuity and depth.’ Francine Prose, New Republic

‘Witty, funny, sophisticated, neatly tied up, and full of wise and illuminating insights.’ P. J. Kavanagh, Spectator

‘De Botton is a national treasure.’ Susan Hill

‘I doubt if de Botton has written a dull sentence in his life.’ Jan Morris, New Statesman

‘Single-handedly, de Botton has taken philosophy back to its simplest and most important purpose: helping us to live our lives.’ Independent



About the Author

Alain De Botton was born in 1969. He is the author of The Romantic Movement, Kiss and Tell, How Proust Can Change Your Life, The Consolations of Philsophy, The Art of Travel and Status Anxiety . His work is translated into 20 languages. He lives in London. For more information, consult www.alaindebotton.com.

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Essays In Love
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Customer Reviews

8 Reviews
5 star:
 (3)
4 star:
 (1)
3 star:
 (2)
2 star:    (0)
1 star:
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Average Customer Review
3.4 out of 5 stars (8 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
37 of 39 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A read that strikes a chord., 16 May 2006
This is a wonderful book. It charts the development of a relationship between the speaker and a woman he meets on a flight. Everyone will undoubtedly relate to the different stages of the relationship, from initial uncomfortable exchanges, charged with expectation, to the concern that you are more involved than your object of desire. It's a book that contains moments of high humour and accurately depicts the frustrations, confusions, joy and desolate despair that only romantic entanglement can bring. Neatly suffused with readable and thought provoking asides, this is a fantastic book - read it.
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7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Novel approach to popular philosophy, 3 May 2007
By Nabokoviette (Tel Aviv, Israel) - See all my reviews
Alain de Botton's first book is a mixture of novel and essay, charting the development and disintegration of a love affair. Whilst the book would probably fail as a novel - there is little plot, and the characters and the scenarios in which they are placed serve only to illustrate de Botton's philosophical musings on the many aspects of love, it succeeds as an easily accessible, thought-provoking, often amusing and original work. The author writes clearly, engagingly and with wit and intelligence. Recommended.
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4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars not uninteresting but limited, 13 Jan 2009
This is neat exploration of romantic love in the 21st century (though its modernity is coloured by rather conservative, conformist notion of interaction). AdB is a bright guy and he realises that the book asks more questions than it answers (it would wouldn't it?) and is intended as material for debate (internal? shared?). He is not trying to solve the problem nor write a self-help book, a seducer's manual or a `get over your man' Cosmo diatribe. There are drawbacks: stylistically, he's hardly Proust; the numbering of paragraphs is noisome - it's not as if he refers to, say, `$60 above' which would be more systematic; the (lightly borne) philosophy is not really the right one (Kierkgaard, Nietzsche, Plotinus would be superior helpmates to ones he cites); and the `novelistic' side of the lover's tale is sometimes cloying (a man who `doesn't notice' a strategically placed mirror in a bedroom!! They have such interesting friends, deary! he's `socially superior' to her, etc. etc.)... still there are observations here that are worth digging for, especially for an adolescent reader starting out, as it were, and thinking he has gone nuts. Others might try Adam Philips...or better Tolstoy and Proust.
The great limitation? Well, I think there are more differences with respect to romantic love between men and women than it is fashionable to advance today and de Botton almost totally ignores the woman's side of the story. You might say, well, of course it's by and about a man - but men are not totally precluded from seeing the feminine (ugh?) point of view and this AdB singularly fails to attempt. Is there a book out there that does, but not in the `he betrayed me, the cad' school of wimmin's writing that dominates the shelves...?
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Good reality check
Alain is an excellent writer, relating a realistic love story (with a sad ending, like many) whilst analysing it philosphically. Read more
Published 15 days ago by O. R. Rendon Rhompson

3.0 out of 5 stars Well written but narrow
Alain De Botton is never less than an interesting writer and this book is no exception. However, it is comfortably my least favourite of his books because I can relate to it... Read more
Published 5 months ago by Adrenalin Streams

1.0 out of 5 stars Eloquence and intelligence serving a poor perspective
The intelligence of Alain De Botton (ADB hereafter) is unquestionable, after reading most of his other books I picked this one up while writing a book on the subject of love... Read more
Published 6 months ago by Theis Egeberg

5.0 out of 5 stars Absolutely brilliant book which masterfully analyses the very architecture of modern romance. A must read!!
I have read most of De Botton's works and this to me is, quite unquestionably, my favourite. But it's not just for De Botton fans, by any means... Read more
Published 10 months ago by Mr. T. White

1.0 out of 5 stars Boring and self centered..
I love Alain de Botton's 'Architecture of Happiness" and "The Art of Travel"; highly intelligent and wonderful books. Read more
Published on 13 Oct 2007 by H. Copely

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