Alain de Botton's Book Recommendations (Updated for 2026)

1

Montaigne: Complete Essays

Michel de Montaigne

4.4

Catalog of a private collection of mostly post-archaic Chinese jade carvings, including many very fine animals and human figures.

Recommended by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Ryan Holiday, and Alain de Botton.

Alain de Botton

I’ve given quite a lot of copies of this book to people down the years. [source]

Ryan Holiday

Author

There is plenty to study and see simply by looking inwards — maybe even an alarming amount. [source]

Cover unavailable

2

The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Milan Kundera

4.2

In The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera tells the story of a young woman in love with a man torn between his love for her and his incorrigible womanizing and one of his mistresses and her humbly faithful lover. This magnificent novel juxtaposes geographically distant places; brilliant and playful reflections; and a variety of styles to take its place as perhaps the major achievement of

Recommended by Ev Williams, Evan Spiegel, Alain de Botton, and 6 others.

Alain de Botton

This book was recommended by on page 488 in "Tools of Titans". [source]

Evan Spiegel

Evan Spiegel said this was his favorite book. [source]

Bernard Tan

I wasn’t expecting anything going into it, but I am currently quite engrossed by Kundera’s understanding of humanity and his beautiful writing style. [source]

3

The Crowded Dance of Modern Life

Virginia Woolf

4.5

The linking theme of these essays is modernity, for Woolf was writing in a world radically separated from the old certainties by the catastrophe of World War I. Here she provides some responses to what she called "the crowded dance of modern life".

Recommended by Alain de Botton.

Alain de Botton

Woolf was like many writers of the early 20th century, such as Joyce or Proust, who were interested in the word modern. The traditions of the 19th century had been broken and the modern world… [source]

4

Home is Where We Start from: Essays by a Psychoanalyst

D. W. Winnicott

4.4

This collection brings together some of psychoanalyst D.W. Winnicott's most important work contributing to our understanding of the minds of children. The essays range in topic from "The Concept of a Healthy Individual" and "The Value of Depression" to "Delinquancy as a sign of Hope". All reveal Winnicott's vision of the ways in which the developing self interacts with the family and the larger so

Recommended by Alain de Botton.

Alain de Botton

Winnicott was one of the most accomplished interpreters of Freud in England. And what is interesting is that he makes psychoanalysis very English. [source]

Cover unavailable

5

The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer: The Wisdom of Life

Arthur Schopenhauer

4.1

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) was a German philosopher best known for his work The World as Will and Representation. He responded to and expanded upon Immanuel Kant's philosophy concerning the way in which we experience the world. His critique of Kant, his creative solutions to the problems of human experience and his explication of the limits of human knowledge are among his most important achi

Recommended by Alain de Botton.

Alain de Botton

Anyone past the age of 20 is sure to realise that our desires are pretty endless and that some of them are the result of a modern capitalist society. It’s very nice to be reminded by Schopenhauer… [source]

6

The Secret Power of Beauty: First Edition

John Armstrong

4.1

A graceful and lucid study of the power of beauty and the deep significance it has in our lives

In defining beauty and our response to it, we are often caught between the concrete and the sublime. We wish to categorize beauty, to clearly label its parts, and yet we wish also to celebrate its mysterious-and at times mythical-power. Armstrong's response is a discursive and graceful journey through

Recommended by Alain de Botton.

Alain de Botton

The modern way of thinking about beauty is to consider it a diversion. People apologise for finding someone attractive because we think it’s superficial… Armstrong goes back to a much earlier view… [source]

7

Yoga for People Who Can't Be Bothered to Do It

Geoff Dyer

3.4

From Amsterdam to Cambodia, from Rome to Indonesia, from New Orleans to Libya, and from Detroit to Ko Pha-Ngan, Geoff Dyer finds himself both floundering about in a sea of grievances and finding moments of transcendental calm. This aberrant quest for peak experiences leads, ultimately, to the Black Rock Desert in Nevada, where, to quote Tarkovsky's Stalker, 'your most cherished desire will come tr

Recommended by Alain de Botton.

Alain de Botton

It’s a book about Dyer’s mind, which I think is both interesting and funny… He is constantly flitting with ideas about all sorts of stuff… [source]

8

In Search of Lost Time (6 Volumes)

Marcel Proust

4.4

For this complete, authoritative English-language edition, D. J. Enright has revised the late Terence Kilmartin's acclaimed reworking of C. K. Scott Moncrieff's translation to take into account the new definitive French editions of 'À la recherche du temps perdu' (the final volume of these new editions was published by the Bibliothèque de la Pléiade in 1989).

Recommended by Alain de Botton, Carlo Rovelli, Mona Simpson, and 2 others.

Alain de Botton

About a search for how you can stop wasting your life and start to appreciate life and live fully. [source]

Carlo Rovelli

Proust’s reflection on the nature of time is deep and spread over his writing. [source]

Mona Simpson

You have a treat in store – and of course there are many more volumes after Swann’s Way! [source]