The Art of Travel - Reviews
Alison Lurie in The New York Review of Books, 15 March 2007
Today we expect nonfiction to be either comic or somber: to make us laugh, or to inform us, warn us, or terrify us with accounts of miserable childhoods or natural and political disasters. The idea that prose might be both casual in manner and serious in intent is almost forgotten. It survives, however, in the work of Alain de Botton. More...
Adam Gopnik in the The New Yorker, 11 September 2002
'Once again, de Botton employs what has become his unique literary combination punch - the left jabbing hard at immediate experience, the right swinging long from a muscular knowledge of philosophy and belles lettres - to take on a quotidian subject. More...
Chris Wright in The Boston Phoenix, August 29 2002
Essayist Alain de Botton explores Amsterdam and Barbados, wrestles with the meaning of life, and explains 'the exoticism of shitting donkeys' More...
Robert Birnbaum on indentitytheory.com, August 2002
Alain de Botton is the author of six books, three of them ostensibly novels: On Love, The Romantic Movement and Kiss and Tell. His first non-fiction book, How Proust Can Change Your Life: Not a Novel, was an international bestseller and was published in 20 languages. More...
Kendall Hill in The Sydney Morning Herald, 17 August 2002
Don't read The Art of Travel while you're actually on the road or mid-flight - it doesn't work. You can't romanticise travel for very long when you're stuck in it. More...
Carmela Ciuraru in the Los Angeles Times, 11 August 2002
In previous books, Alain de Botton has mined the life and work of Proust to offer readers a quirky source of self-help and explored the writings of various philosophers in a similarly user-friendly guide. More...
Michael Upchurch in The Seattle Times, 4 August 2002
It would be difficult to name a writer as erudite and yet as reader-friendly as British author Alain de Botton. He seems to have read every book, studied every painting, investigated every philosophy - but he would never dream of lording his accomplishments over his readers. More...
John Freeman in the San Francisco Chronicle, 4 August 2002
Over the past decade a new crop of pro
