How Proust Can Change Your Life

An original work that is a pleasure to read... In addition to being a critique, a biography, a work of literary history, and a guide to Proust's masterpiece, it is also a handbook for readers, in the truest sense of the word.

The New York Times

For those who wonder what Proust had in mind when he penned "In Search of Lost Time," a work of one million two hundred fifty thousand words, Alain de Botton answers this question. In a contemporary style, informative and uplifting, Alain de Botton delves into the depths of Proust's life and works, distilling Proust's books, letters, and speeches to produce a truly useful handbook. Alain de Botton's little book is so delightful, so enjoyable, so insightful that the book itself might even change your life.

Allan Massie, Daily Telegraph

An intelligently written, excellent book that helps you learn what reading is for.

Doris Lessing

It is more concerned with people than many fictional books, containing more imagination... de Botton reads Proust's works for us again, drawing lessons for us from his life, filling that enormous, sacred lake with the sweet, clear water he has distilled.

John Updike, New Yorker