From the author of The Consolations of Philosophy, a deeply provocative and useful argument about how we can benefit from the wisdom and power of religion—without having to “believe” in any of it. What if religions aren’t either all true or all nonsense? The sterile debate between fundamentalist believers and non-believers is finally advanced by Alain de Botton’s astonishing new book, which boldly argues that the supernatural claims of religion are of course entirely false—and yet religion still has some very important things to teach the secular world. Religion for Atheists suggests that atheists shouldn’t trash religion, they should steal from it—because the world’s religions are packed with good ideas on how we should live in and arrange our societies. In a highly original and readable tone that blends deep respect with total impiety, de Botton (a non-believer himself) proposes that we should look to religions for insights on, among other topics, how to: build a sense of community, make our relationships last, dampen feelings of envy and inadequacy, escape the 24-hour media world, go traveling, get more out of art, and build new businesses geared around our emotional needs. For too long non-believers have faced a stark choice between either swallowing lots of peculiar doctrines or doing away with a range of consoling and beautiful rituals and ideas. At last, Alain de Botton, the author of the bestselling The Consolations of Philosophy and How Proust Can Change Your Life , has produced a far more interesting and truly helpful alternative.

The starting point of How Proust can change your Life is that a great novel can be nothing less than life-transforming. This is an unusual claim: our education system, while stressing that novels are highly worthwhile, rarely investigates why this is so. How Proust can change your Life takes Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time as the basis for a sustained investigation into the power and significance of literature. Proust’s novel, almost a byword for obscurity and irrelevance, emerges as an invaluable source of insight into the workings of love, society, art and the meaning of existence. The book reveals Proust’s thoughts on how to revive a relationship, choose a good doctor, enjoy a holiday, make friends and respond to insult. A vivid portrait of the eccentric yet deeply sympathetic author is built up out of extracts from his letters, essays and fiction and is combined with a commentary on the power of literature to change our lives. A self-help book like few others.(extracted from Alaindebotton.com)

From the bestselling author of The Art of Travel comes a wittily intriguing exploration of the strange "non-place" that he believes is the imaginative center of our civilization. Given unprecedented access to one of the world’s busiest airports as a “writer-in-residence,” Alain de Botton found it to be a showcase for many of the major crosscurrents of the modern world—from our faith in technology to our destruction of nature, from our global interconnectedness to our romanticizing of the exotic. He met travelers from all over and spoke with everyone from baggage handlers to pilots to the airport chaplain. Weaving together these conversations and his own observations—of everything from the poetry of room service menus to the eerie silence in the middle of the runway at midnight—de Botton has produced an extraordinary meditation on a place that most of us never slow down enough to see clearly. Lavishly illustrated in color by renowned photographer Richard Baker, A Week at the Airport reveals the airport in all its turbulence and soullessness and—yes—even beauty.

对于性，我们思考的并不多，而且思考的方向也搞错了。这本严谨又诚恳的书，有助于我们把握既让人亲密兴奋又令人困惑的性体验。 涉及性这个问题时，我们很少有人会觉得自己完全正常，也很少有人会认为自己的期望与实际相符。在21世纪，性最终注定要在爱情与欲望，寻求刺激与信守承诺之间保持平衡。 阿兰·德波顿坦率探讨了现代人在性方面的两难境地，话题涉及欲望、恋物癖、出轨、情色等方面，他所给出的洞见和抚慰，有助于我们更深入、更明智地思考性的问题。

本书是一部充满趣味的长篇爱情小说。叙述了一对恋人从邂逅、恋爱到分手的充满戏剧色彩的爱情内容。但小说的精彩并不仅仅是故事本身，而在于作者怎样机敏、智慧地用历史、哲学、宗教、心理学阐述爱情这一古老话题，使读者阅读后有许多欣喜的发现。