Alain de Botton

Alain de Botton is a Swiss-British philosopher and writer whose books apply the history of ideas to ordinary life. Essays in Love was his witty nonfiction-cum-novel debut, and How Proust Can Change Your Life turned a literary giant into a manual for living well — launching a string of bestselling titles on happiness, work, architecture and art.

Trained at Cambridge and later at King's College London, de Botton is founder of The School of Life, which offers emotional education through workshops and books. His serene, aphoristic style, blending therapy, philosophy and literature, has made him one of the most popular public philosophers in the world.