Alain de Boton

[nannyme]

Is anyone reading Architecture of Happiness?

I read Satus Anxiety and was rather disappointed so resisted buying his latest bestseller but keep wondering if maybe I should have bought it.

??

What is he about? Is he self-help? I had a boyfriend who was really into him, but the boyfriend was such an amazingly twonkish individual he put me off poor de Boton.

More like self-doubt!

I guess you could read as a self-help title but he is too philosphical in approach for me to use any of his stuff in this way.

Michael Moore meets Proust?!

I dislike Alain de Boton .. I think its his big baldy heid

dat was mature of me wasn't it .. never read anything just seen some of his dire tv work

This ex kept going on about Boton and his interpretation of some of the great Greek philosophers. So I asked him (the EX bf) what his impression of the works were, assuming he'd of course read them.

Nah, he just used the Boton York notes version to try to sound like he knew what he was talking about.

I loved The Consolations of Philosophy and How Proust Can Change Your Life, but for some reason Alain has become a figure of fun in the media recently :-S

Ha ha expat!

I only bought it because it was a special offer combi on Amazon when I bought Thomas More's Magician by Toby Green!

I ended up reading only the preface of Green's book and the whole of Botton instead!

I did classical civilisation A level but would probably still need York notes or something in order to sound intelligent about, err.. well anything probably.

Do they do York notes on everything?!

it is Botton

just for your info

that's all

I find him rather shallow and his arguments not terribly rigorous.
Nice easy readable intro to philosophers and stuff though, so not a bad thing.

The architecture programme (based on the book) was frustrating because it was such an interesting topic but he never actually got to grips with the complexity of the issues and the arguments he was making simply didn't follow.

Was there a programme?

I don't 'do' telly all that much

Surely architecture itself was kind of subsidiary?

I liked Status Anxiety a lot - I found it a curious sort of self-help thing in that it made it clear to me why I stand where I do an various moral issues. And I recommended it to someone who freely admits to being an ignorant tory voter in the hope that she'll understand why I couldn't just laugh that off.

I read Status Anxiety and ended up disappointed. He had an interestign point to make, but did not follow it through or make any interestign conclusions. Anxiety nowadays is often caused by status - but so what? What should we do about it? Where do we go from here?

art of travel was quite interesting if dipped into just every now and then. saw his prog architecture of happiness, didn't seem to reach much of a conclusion other than that both buyers & builders should be more daring. didn't like the examples he held up as good egs though!

yeah, never bothered with SA - as you said, what exactly is his point? seems like extended sunday paper article IMO!