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The pleasures and sorrows of work

Posted Mar 20, 2009

Forthcoming book by celebrated author Alain de Botton explores the joys and perils of the modern workplace evoking what other people get up to day and night to make the frenzied contemporary world function.

In this new book - to be released on April 2nd in Europe (June 2nd US), the author Alain de Botton leads us on a journey around a deliberately eclectic range of occupations, from rocket science to biscuit manufacture, accountancy to art – in search of what make jobs either fulfilling or soul-destroying.

The book amounts to a celebration and investigation of an activity as central to a good life as love – but which we often find remarkably hard to reflect on properly. As the author points out, most of us are still working at jobs chosen for us by our sixteen-year-old selves.

The book is the perfect guide to the vicious anxieties and enticing hopes thrown up by our journey through the working world. An activity that surprisingly little gets written about and yet is one of the most exciting and most painful of all our activities.

To celebrate the book's launch - the author is inviting readers to send images of their own working spaces to www.myworkingspace.co.uk. Take a peek at where the world works from.

Source & Photo Credit: Alain de Botton

 

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