Life: A User’s Manual

Philosophy for (Almost) Any Eventuality

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Summary

How should I live?
What is my purpose?
Can I find happiness?

Ever felt as though life would be simpler if it came with an instruction manual? There are no easy answers to the big questions. And life does not follow a straight path from A to B.

Since the beginning of time, people have asked questions about how they should live and, from Ancient Greece to Japan, philosophers have attempted to solve these questions for us. The timeless wisdom that they offer can help us to find our own path. In this insightful, engaging book, renowned existential psychotherapist and philosophical counsellor Antonia Macaro and bestselling philosopher Julian Baggini cover topics such as bereavement, luck, free will and relationships, and guide us through what the greatest thinkers to ever walk the earth have to say on these subjects, from the Stoics to Sartre.

Discover advice from the world's greatest thinkers on questions like:
Is there a right way to grieve?
What is free will?
How can we learn from past mistakes?
Do we make our own luck?

Reviews

An absolute joy ... This fascinating book is as close as you'll get to hiring history's wisest minds as your personal life advisers
Oliver Burkeman, author of The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking

About the authors

Julian Baggini

Julian Baggini’s books include A Short History of Truth, How the World Thinks, Freedom Regained, The Ego Trick, What’s It All About?: Philosophy and the Meaning of Life and the best-selling The Pig That Wants To Be Eaten. He has written for numerous newspapers and magazines, as well as for the think tanks The Institute of Public Policy Research, Demos and Counterpoint. He was the co-founder of The Philosophers' Magazine.

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Antonia Macaro

Antonia Macaro is an existential psychotherapist, author of More than Happiness: Buddhist and Stoic Wisdom for a Sceptical Age, Reason, Virtue and Psychotherapy and co-author of The Shrink and the Sage. She has many years’ clinical experience in the field of addictive behaviours. Antonia has a degree in Oriental Studies and an MA in Philosophy, and was part of the UK’s philosophical counselling movement from its early days.