Alain de Botton was born in Zurich in 1969 and now lives in London. He is a writer of essayistic books that have been described as a “philosophy of everyday life.” He has written on love, travel, architecture and literature. His books have been bestsellers in 30 countries. De Botton also started and helps to run a London-based school called The School of Life, dedicated to a new vision of education, and authors pieces for its YouTube channel. His newest book, published in February 2014, is titled The News: A User’s Manual.

De Botton’s first book, Essays in Love (titled On Love in the United States) was published when he was 23 and has sold two million copies worldwide. It minutely analyzed the process of falling in and out of love, in a style that mixed elements of fiction and non-fiction. With How Proust Can Change Your Life, de Botton’s work reached a truly global audience. It was followed by The Consolations of Philosophy, The Art of Travel, Status Anxiety, The Architecture of Happiness, The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work, Religion for Atheists and Art as Therapy. In the summer of 2009, de Botton was appointed Heathrow Airport’s first writer-in-residence and wrote a book about his experiences: A Week at the Airport.

De Botton continues his work with the architectural organization he founded, Living Architecture, which aims to give everyone access to the work of some of the greatest architects in the world.

His latest book is The News: A User’s Manual, which urges people to think differently about the media and to recognize the ways in which our attention spans and mentalities are manipulated.

“Nothing human can ever be free of blemishes. There cannot be an end to boom and bust, mayhem and death.”