essays in love botton

Essays In Love

Alain de botton.

212 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 1993

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"Every fall into love involves the triumph of hope over self-knowledge. We fall in love hoping we won't find in another what we know is in ourselves, all the cowardice, weakness, laziness, dishonesty, compromise, and stupidity. We throw a cordon of love around the chosen one and decide that everything within it will somehow be free of our faults. We locate inside another a perfection that eludes us within ourselves, and through our union with the beloved hope to maintain (against the evidence of all self-knowledge) a precarious faith in our species."

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Essays in Love  is a novel about two young people, who meet on an airplane between London and Paris and rapidly fall in love. The structure of the story isn’t unusual, but what lends the book its interest is the extraordinary depth with which the emotions involved in the relationship are analysed. Love comes under the philosophical microscope. An entire chapter is devoted to the nuances and subtexts of an initial date. Another chapter mulls over the question of how and when to say ‘I love you’. There’s an essay on how uncomfortable it can be to disagree with a lover’s taste in shoes and a lengthy discussion about the role of guilt in love.

The book is an intriguing blend of novel and non-fiction. As in a novel, there are characters and realistic settings, but these are blended in with a host of more abstract ideas. The book has attracted a particular following among those who have recently fallen in love ­- or come out of a relationship.

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• Authors & Illustrators

Alain de Botton

Essays in love.

'De Botton is a national treasure.' - Susan Hill, author of The Woman in Black A unique love story and a classic work of philosophy, rooted in the mysterious workings of the human heart and mind. Perhaps it is true that we do not really exist until there is someone there to see us existing, we cannot properly speak until there is someone who can understand what we are saying in essence, we are not wholly alive until we are loved. A man and woman on a flight from Paris to London, and so begins their love story. From first kiss to first argument, infatuation to heartbreak, de Botton illuminates each stage of their relationship with a clarity both startling and tender. With the verve of a novelist and the insight of a philosopher, Essays in Love unveils the mysteries of the human heart. It is essential reading for anyone seeking instruction in the art of love.

The book's success has much to do with its beautifully modelled sentences, its wry humour and its unwavering deadpan respect for its reader's intelligence . . . full of keen observation and flashes of genuine lyricism, acuity and depth. Francine Prose, author of The Vixen and Lovers at the Chameleon Club

Witty, funny, sophisticated, neatly tied up, and full of wise and illuminating insights The Spectator

De Botton is a national treasure. Susan Hill, author of The Woman in Black

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Publisher's summary

Essays in Love is a stunningly original love story. Taking in Aristotle, Wittgenstein, history, religion and Groucho Marx, Alain de Botton charts the progress of a love affair from the first kiss to argument and reconciliation, from intimacy and tenderness to the onset of anxiety and heartbreak.

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• Performance 0 out of 5 stars 0
• Story 0 out of 5 stars 0

Much of today's media tells us to be thinner, richer, and more successful. This book tells us how to be nicer. Niceness may not have the immediate allure of money or fame, but we can all benefit from practical advice on how to be more patient, better at listening, less irritable, and less defensive. This is a guidebook to the uncharted landscape of niceness, gently exploring the key themes of this often overlooked quality.

The School of Life: On Failure

• How to Succeed at Defeat
• Length: 5 hrs and 36 mins
• Overall 5 out of 5 stars 5
• Performance 4.5 out of 5 stars 5
• Story 5 out of 5 stars 5

This is a hopeful, consoling, gentle book about failure. Our societies talk a lot about success, but the reality is that no one gets through life without failing–in small and usually also in large ways. Sometimes our failures are very obvious, at other times, we feel we have to conceal them out of shame. This book encourages us to accept the role that failure plays for all of us and to feel compassion for ourselves for the messes we can’t help but make as we go through our lives.

The second part of the book was really good perceived failure.

• By Anonymous User on 12-29-23

What listeners say about Essays in Love

• 4.5 out of 5 stars 4.4 out of 5.0
• 5 Stars 180
• 4.5 out of 5 stars 4.5 out of 5.0
• 5 Stars 170
• 4.5 out of 5 stars 4.3 out of 5.0
• 5 Stars 152

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Audible.com reviews, amazon reviews.

• Overall 5 out of 5 stars
• Performance 5 out of 5 stars
• Story 5 out of 5 stars

Thought provoking and well performed

I enjoyed this peek into the brain of a young man contemplating love and romance, and found it to be enlightening and relatable. The narrator keeps things moving along crisply, which is crucial since much of the book is comprised not of action but of musings. I look forward to listening to The Course of Love next.

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• Reem Alsmaiel

Enjoyable read

I enjoyed this book thoroughly. I liked how it captured the man’s point of view throughout the relationship journey. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in understanding love in all its stages.

Brilliantly plucks and weaves love's nuances

What did you love best about Essays in Love?

The story is engaging. There are really good points made, great references, and de Botton analyzes the nuances of falling in and out of love with the perspective and depth of someone who's lived a thousand lives. The narrator's voice is very attractive.

What does James Wilby bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

Great voice. Very warm and theatrical (not in an exaggerated way) at the same time.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Yes. It was so hard to even go to sleep. I had my Audible on sleep timer several times but didn't want to miss anything to grogginess. So I would relisten the same parts the next day. This book is so wise.

Any additional comments?

Definitely listen to this.

3 people found this helpful

• Overall 4 out of 5 stars
• Performance 3 out of 5 stars
• Story 4 out of 5 stars

• Anonymous User

Good story, poor narration

The narrator is too dramatic which unfortunately ruins some moments. I enjoyed the story though.

• Colby L Mortensen

Unbearably profound in its complexity and depth. So attuned to the nuances of romances spells, and an amazing gift of disillusionment.

• Performance 4 out of 5 stars

• Maria L. Lantin

Every relationship you've ever analyzed

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

I wouldn't recommend this book to all my friends but I know that some of them would enjoy it as much as I did. It's for romantics that think too much sometimes. It's for realists that love to fall in love nevertheless.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Essays in Love?

There are many memorable moments...but perhaps what stands out now after a couple weeks is the way intimacy in the couple is revealed and lost. The fight scenes are funny in a "oh yeah, I've been there" kinda way.

Have you listened to any of James Wilby’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

It was my first James Wilby book and I enjoyed his reading very much.

Who was the most memorable character of Essays in Love and why?

I guess it was the main male character because he's so introspective to the point of absurdity but also insightful.

5 people found this helpful

• Andre Mendes

One day binge

Simply could not put this book down. There are so few stories, love stories fewer still, that capture real life so well. The book itself is a beautiful mix of philosophical topics with narrative that makes for such an enlightening and enjoyable listening experience. Very well performed, I'd highly recommend it to anyone looking for a realistic love story.

2 people found this helpful

• Story 3 out of 5 stars

So close but not quite

I really like Alain de Botton, and really wanted to love this book but unfortunately the narrative pales in comparison to his philosophical digressions. Having said that, it did make me see my past relationships in a new light. The narrator was very good, although his female voice could be better.

Bewildering!

The narrator's voice was sublime, as always. The story in itself was mundane, much unlike the author's take on love and his stunning talent in analyzing every psychological aspect of its every stages.

I love this story.

I like the life nugget sprinkled through out this love story. It’s so real. Need to listen to it again.

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Essays in love

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Book Review: Essays in Love // Alain de Botton

As soon as the final word on the final page of Essays in Love ended, I felt a strong impulse to write about how this book made me feel, so here goes.

This book is a rarity. Feeling so content and warm when reading a book happens only on occasion, and this book has been successful in doing so. Written by Alain de Botton as his first novel in such a beautifully poetic manner, Essays in Love documents a passionate and tender relationship between a man and a woman, which happened coincidentally and ends inevitably. Told from the man’s perspective, his philosophical stance on love for his other half Chloe paints an intricate picture of how intense love can be. He marks each part of the relationship in chronological order, each chapter as a mini philosophical essay, going into great depth about simple details of their relationship such as seducing her, saying ‘I love you’, silently arguing through ‘romantic terrorism’ and wanting to commit suicide when it’s over. This all may sound slightly obsessive – which it essentially is – but through de Botton’s flowing and softly-spoken writing style, it’s as if the novel is being whispered to you (in the least creepy way possible).

The novel begins with their meeting on a flight, which sounds clichéd but it captures the surprise and coincidence love can bring. The characterisation of the speaker depicts him as a clearly highly intelligent and profound man, whose analytical thinking allows us directly into his mind and how well he can breakdown and evaluate love. As the chapters progress, so too does the relationship, which starts off awkward but grows and grows into a strong adoration for one another. His observations of the little mannerisms and physical attributes of Chloe which he found to be beautiful were extremely poignant, as are the moral questions he asks about love such as “If she really is so wonderful, how could she love someone like me?” and “Is it not my right to be loved and her duty to love me?”

The relationship between the speaker and Chloe is one of normality; it’s nothing spectacular. What really makes it so special, however, is the way the story is told in such detail and depth. Each sentence is sculpted so flawlessly; the last couple of chapters are particularly stunning, as the book doesn’t simply describe being in love, but also being out of love, and these chapters deal with getting over a break-up in such a raw and realistic manner. Describing Chloe’s affair with the speaker’s work partner Will was heart-wrenching to read, particularly due to how deep his affections for her were, but the beauty of it is how realistic it is – it’s not all magic and fairy tales, it’s just an ordinary relationship (if such a thing exists).

The book often references philosophers and analogies from philosophy which may be slightly confusing if you don’t have prior philosophical knowledge; however this does not affect the book as a whole. It can, at times, be quite challenging to grasp due to the scope of language used, but this generally makes the book so much more sophisticated.

Whether you are falling in, have fallen or have fallen out of love, Essays in Love will explain all the complexities, unanswered questions, underlying feelings and strange sensations love seems to entail. This book is a treasure, one which is highly underrated, and I am left blown away by its beauty. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to recommend this novel to everyone and anyone who’s willing to listen.

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Essays in Love (On Love) by Alain de Botton

general information | review summaries | our review | links | about the author

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B : weaknesses galore, but clever enough, with his trademark digressions, that we do recommend it

See our review for fuller assessment.

   From the Reviews : "Alain de Botton picks up the torch, so to speak, more or less where Stendhal left off. De Botton�s On Love reads as if Stendhal had lived into the �90s, survived modern critical theory (as he clearly has), thought it was funny (as he likely would have), but retained a novelist�s sympathy for the impulse -- which he shared -- to deconstruct and to dissect in search of some higher understanding." - Francine Prose, The New Republic "The result is something like La Rochefoucauld�s maxims crossed with Adolphe, with jokes and against a background of luggage reclaim areas and breakfast cereal packets. (...) Ingeniously pinpointed mundane details stop the novel from getting too abstract. It is witty, funny, sophisticated, neatly tied up, and full of wise and illuminating insights." - Gabriele Annan, The Spectator Please note that these ratings solely represent the complete review 's biased interpretation and subjective opinion of the actual reviews and do not claim to accurately reflect or represent the views of the reviewers. Similarly the illustrative quotes chosen here are merely those the complete review subjectively believes represent the tenor and judgment of the review as a whole. We acknowledge (and remind and warn you) that they may, in fact, be entirely unrepresentative of the actual reviews by any other measure.

The complete review 's Review :

       Baby-faced in appearance, Gallic in name and often in attitude, English Wunderkind De Botton has achieved notable (and somewhat galling) success at an early age, with five books to his name before he turned thirty. On Love was his first novel ( Essays in Love , as the British original had it) -- though there are also similarly themed later novels, Kiss & Tell and The Romantic Movement . Love preoccupies the young author, as well it might, and though a big subject to tackle, De Botton tackles well.        The story of this novel is simplicity itself: a love affair, from its very beginning to its very end. De Botton's narrator describes falling in love with Chloe, being in love with her, and then getting over her. An old story, the twist here is in how De Botton relates it, dwelling and (over)analyzing each and every aspect, and looking to see greater truths in them.        De Botton is intelligent, and he chooses to approach his book cleverly. Clever and intelligent do not always mix, but De Botton manages quite well. Each relatively short chapter is further divided into numbered paragraphs, each a brief point (or often a brief digression) illuminating various aspects of the love between Chloe and the narrator -- and love in general. Young, well-educated, fairly well to do, neither is completely sympathetic. Part of De Botton's success is that he shows us everyday love in characters who are not particularly appealing. He revels in considering all aspects of love, including -- or rather, especially -- the mundane and everyday and trivial. There are charts and pictures and diagrams, and some of it is too cute and forced, but overall it is indeed a clever little book.        It is a young author's book, and we occasionally grimace at some of what De Botton tries -- but it is a difficult subject to handle well. Other people's love affairs are often not the most interesting of subjects, especially when one deals with the everyday minutiae, but for most of the book De Botton keeps us hooked with his interesting thoughts on love's many aspects. The almost banal affair itself does stifle the narrative (De Botton's strength is certainly essayistic, which is why his Proust book is far superior to the novels), but there are enough well-conceived flights of fancy to keep the reader amused.        In her review Francine Prose makes particular note of the chapter entitled Marxism , where the Marxism in question is not Karl's, but rather the Groucho's who didn't want to belong to any club that would have him. It is that sort of cleverness that fills the book, and those who are put off by it should turn elsewhere. Prose is correct in expecting that those who can't appreciate this notion (which De Botton handles very cleverly) would not enjoy the book. We would argue that the book is, on some level, even more demanding than that. De Botton is intelligent, and the book is rich in allusion and reference. While most of this is enjoyable, it is perhaps the place where he truly goes wrong: the references are too clever for the quality of his narrative (he is not quite up to snuff in the story-telling department yet), and so readers are left either disappointed by the writing or confused by the references.        We still recommend this book rather highly, as an interesting failed effort, with enough quality, humor, and cleverness (and love-talk !) to satisfy. Like all of De Botton's book, it makes one think -- though without being overly taxing.

About the Author :

       English author Alain de Botton was born in Switzerland in 1969 and educated at Cambridge.

© 1999-2010 the complete review Main | the New | the Best | the Rest | Review Index | Links

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Anne Lamott Has Written Classics. This Is Not One of Them.

Slim and precious, “Somehow: Thoughts on Love” doesn’t measure up to her best nonfiction.

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By Alexandra Jacobs

SOMEHOW: Thoughts on Love, by Anne Lamott

Anne Lamott is a national treasure who, at age 70, is putting out not books but throw pillows with embroidered mottoes and little tassels. A lot of people find comfort in them and will curl right up with her latest, “Somehow,” a collection of inspirational anecdotes and meditations. Yours truly wants them off the bed.

It wasn’t always like this. In a world when many books are regrettably D.O.A., Lamott published two works of nonfiction in the space of two years that were C.O.A.: classics on arrival.

“ Operating Instructions ” (1993) was a scatologically exact account of raising her baby, Sam, minus a father in the picture, that presaged a brood of parenting memoirs, including Rachel Cusk’s “A Life’s Work.”

And countless writers have clutched “ Bird by Bird ” (1994), a guide to conquering the terror of the blank page during their dark nights of the soul. (Darker, so much darker, since the internet made words cheap.)

My introduction to Lamott was reviewing “Crooked Little Heart” (1997), about an adolescent girl named Rosie on the tennis circuit, for a different publication. I disagreed completely with the esteemed Benjamin Cheever’s complaint in The New York Times that nothing really happened in it . If you had any memory of being an adolescent girl, then that nothingness, which included a creepy spectator named Luther and a teen pregnancy, was everything.

Finding out “Crooked Little Heart” was a sequel to “Rosie” (1983), wherein the protagonist’s mother is widowed young and reckons with her alcoholism, was like walking through the wardrobe in “The Chronicles of Narnia” into a fictional world whose boundaries magically expand. A comparison more fitting when you realize that Lamott’s work, like C.S. Lewis’s, has a strong Christian subtext — when it’s not beckoning you right into the next pew.

Though religious, Lamott, a longtime member of a Bay Area Presbyterian church where she teaches Sunday school, is never holier-than-thou. If her fellow Californian Joan Didion slouched coolly towards Bethlehem, Lamott is forever fumbling toward transcendence, disclosing her baser impulses and littering profanities.

There is the indelible comparison, from “Rosie,” of professional jealousy to swallowing golf balls. In “Somehow” Lamott recalls envying another mom whose son is in medical school and modeling in Milan while Sam is at a low point, and her resentment of a female friend of a friend, with “perfect breasts, proud and immobile as the lions outside the New York Public Library.” (She can also be quite preoccupied with rear ends and jiggly arms.)

Didion’s California was ominous, remote, dry, chilly as an aperitif; Lamott’s is optimistic, accessible, earthy and — hand in hand with her Christianity — suffused with confessional recovery culture, warm as the cup of tea that is served at least half a dozen times in these pages. Only occasionally in “Somehow” does she invoke the bad old days, when she had to “all but army crawl across the floor of my houseboat to get us the platter of cocaine.”

In “Miami,” Didion wrote solemnly of Cuban exiles; in “Somehow,” Lamott takes a pleasure trip to Cuba with her newish husband , Neal Allen — though it’s not that pleasurable for her, because of the bad Wi-Fi — and encounters a pair of locals, wrapping “my aged imperialist running dog arms” around “the youthful ­ coffee-​colored socialist shoulders” of a young woman as they cavort in the surf, then discovering to her delight that her boyfriend is also in recovery, 12 years.

“Sí, sobrio. Alcohólicos Anónimos,” he tells her. “Bill Wilsonos!”

“Ay, caramba,” Lamott replies.

There’s no reason to persist with the daffy Didion comparison, except that both writers are mass-worshiped and occasionally scolded for their white privilege . Didion had dread ; Lamott has dreadlocks . Instead of reclusion and spareness and a frozen youthful image on tote bags , Lamott seems forever available, just next door, sharing the creaks of age and experience in the media ( including The Times ) and on social media — and churning out book after book after book.

Cross-eyed from my own toddlers — part of Lamott’s appeal, to women, is that she seems to guide you through life stages — I completely missed that “Crooked Little Heart” itself had a sequel, “Imperfect Birds” (2010). That no one has packaged this as “The Chronicles of Rosie” feels like a catalog failure — but also of a piece with Lamott’s rambling career, which has slowly covered the publishing landscape when you weren’t looking, like wisteria.

In a moment of interpersonal crisis, her husband reminds Lamott — with a cup of tea — that she has a diligent “inner critic” determined to keep her “small and worried.” Very probably, she doesn’t need an outer critic, even one who hastens to reassure that she loved the glints of old Lamott here, like pointing out seaside “a species of small octopus in pink chiffon who looks just like Zsa Zsa Gabor.”

More Gabor — I implore! Fewer repeat steepings.

“Operating Instructions” was followed by “ Some Assembly Required ” (2012), a fainter reprise with Lamott’s grandson, Jax. She has seemed to curtsy, titlewise at least, to Elizabeth Gilbert’s blockbuster “Eat, Pray, Love” with “Help, Thanks, Wow” (2012) and “Dusk, Night, Dawn” (2021).

Though Didion wrote a play based on her best seller about grief, “The Year of Magical Thinking,” she mercifully never was given the keys to the platform now known as X. Lamott got in hot water when she misgendered Caitlyn Jenner in 2015. She wrote about this already in “Hallelujah Anyway” (2017) and is still trying to clamber out, fretting in the new book’s title essay about a fund-raiser for a law firm that does pro bono work for L.G.B.T.Q. refugees. (In the next one—“Tweet by Tweet”?—maybe she can soothe Swifties peeved by her exhaustion with the pop star’s ubiquity.)

Slim as it is, “Somehow” is flabby and sometimes cringey, defining love variously as “how hope takes flight”; “a pond or a pool where we teach little kids to swim”; “a bench,” “a root system” and “a windbreaker, fashioned of people who sat and listened and got us tea.”

To be clear, I love Anne Lamott. But when she writes of how a friend with a fatal disease passed gas on a walk, and a visiting rabbi blowing a shofar on a houseboat deck reminded her of the flatulence, one does flash unkindly on the remark David Foster Wallace attributed to a lady of his acquaintance, re: another national treasure, John Updike : “Has the son of a bitch ever had one unpublished thought?”

SOMEHOW : Thoughts on Love | By Anne Lamott | Riverhead | 208 pp. | $22

Alexandra Jacobs is a Times book critic and occasional features writer. She joined The Times in 2010. More about Alexandra Jacobs

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