How to Survive the Modern World

Making sense of, and finding calm in, unsteady times

by The School of Life
edited by Alain de Botton

A hopeful guide to living well in the 21st century.

The modern world has brought us a range of extraordinary benefits and joys, including technology, medicine, and transportation. But with these advances, it seems, we’ve also seen an increase in greed, despair, and agitation. 

How to Survive the Modern World is the ultimate guide to navigating our unusual times. The book tackles our relationship to the news, our identities, our careers, our relationship to the natural world, our admiration for science and technology, our belief in individualism and secularism – and our suspicion of quiet and solitude. 

This book helps us form a calmer, more authentic, more resilient, and more light-hearted relationship to the complexities of our age. If modern times can feel like a disease, this book is both the diagnosis and the soothing, hope-filled cure.

• IDENTIFIES THE SOURCE OF SHARED ANXIETY helps us identify the sources of our sorrows in the modern world.
• PRACTICAL ADVICE on dealing with the challenges presented by capitalism, advertising and the media.
• CHAPTERS INCLUDE Media, Materialism, Family, Love, Work, Sex, Science & Religion, Democracy and Nature.
• BEAUTIFULLY PRODUCED premium gift format.

Hardcover | 320 pages | The School of Life | 2022

The School of Life is a London-based organisation built to help us find calm, self-understanding, resilience and connection – especially during troubled times. The School of Life Press was established to condense their learning into a collection of wise and considered texts. The titles are designed to entertain, educate, console and transform.