A beautifully written and entertaining introduction to the way in which philosophy can console us in our daily lives. Socrates consoles us for our unpopularity. Epicurus consoles us for our lack of wealth. Seneca consoles us for frustration. Michel de Montaigne consoles us for all sorts of inadequacies, including sexual. Arthur Schopenhauer provides consolation for a broken heart, and Friedrich Nietzsche seems to have thought feeling wretched a virtue and consoles us for our difficulties.
I read this book on the train but generally only manage a few pages before some passage sends me off into a contemplation of my own. It is at once profound, humorous and down to earth. An excellent book with which to dip one's toe into philosophy, or, for those who have already been seduced, to recall why we were seduced in the first place.
