The School Of Life
Alain de Botton is a favourite author of mine, and in August 2008 he set up, along with other artists and thinkers, The School of Life: ‘a new cultural enterprise based in central London offering intelligent instruction on how to lead a fulfilled life.’
It’s still a new project, and therefore exciting to see how this brave and fun concept will take off. But anyone who has read Alain’s books or watched his films will be hooked.
For those who don’t know him, his writing covers a variety of genres (travel, architecture, fiction), but there is a common thread of living the examined life, and applying philosophy to important everyday concerns. ‘Essays in Love’ and ‘The Consolations of Philosophy’ are great starting points. View his work here, and look out for the very charming and lesser-known DVDs.
D x
The website is great, love the aphorism section.
This blog is a one step forward for me to get some new power. I am so happy that one year ago my friend mentioned your name to me and since then I have been passionate about Your work and techniques. It helped me a lot with confidence and my artistic ambitions, for now I think I can manage even though I struggle a lot with everyday problems. After reading Your extremely fascinating book, I have become a complete atheist (yes, not because of Dawkins, because of Your arguments) and I now lead a much better life trying to get everything from each day.
I will read this blog.
You have influenced me in the best way possible and I love the fact that You’re image is so nineteenth century dandy. We all love Oscar Wilde and surely You are his perfect continuation
A new site! I’ll check it out. I already checked the school of life site .. Well, nice drawings I especially noticed, love the old touch to them.
Their site does not serve any of my goals, but I hope they will serve many people better than others have tried when focussing on these areas in life.
School of life .. aren’t we all already on this school …
most of us did not know till later that it was kind of a school … some of us wished we could be truants perhaps … I think I will do in about .. erm .. 40 years or so (43 now) … Crack the Dutch lottery system .. where is that school?
Like the new website.
‘School of Life’ ? hmm… is this a ye new fangled cult group? I thought you’d quit all that sort of stuff. I noticted on their website that they choose books for you to read….. On a different note how about posting a podcast, Stephen Fry has them on HIS site.
Best regards and keep up the good works, magic, acting, entrepreneuring etc.
“The website is great, love the aphorism section.”
Me too.
Thanks for this. I love Alain’s work and can’t wait to visit the shop, how exciting!
Fantastic blog by the way…
And how is this any different to any religion or cult group if its telling you how to live your life? Pot and kettle?
hmm interesting i think i’ll go & have a neb at that now!!
Further, it resembles in some respects research in human-computer interaction. ,