Life: A User’s Manual

I was immediately drawn into this book. The idea of philosophers grappling and struggling with the human existence reframed them in my eyes, and brought the far away, academic ideas of them closer to me, enabling me to engage with their ideas on a much more human level.

This book is really navigable, presenting itself almost like a dictionary. Each section is bitesized and digestible. It’s like a handy companion full of nuggets of wisdom, that teaches you about some of the ways in which those who have gone before us have understood and then approached our living existence.

I wouldn’t choose to read this like a novel. I would use it exactly how it advertises itself; as a manual. It is a book to reach into and absorb something specific - it would be very much at home on a coffee table (in the best kind of way).

One of the areas in which it lacks is depth. The scope of ideas, feelings, emotions and experience it covers is vast and complex. Some particular issues feel avoided in some ways. They are mentioned, but not much is really said. I felt this with the section on anxiety, and so too, the section on suicide. These are huge topics - you could write thousands of pages on them, which of course can’t be done in a bitesize book like this. But in some ways, I would have preferred these larger topics to be left untouched, rather than grazed.

What this book does provide, is a brilliant bouncing board. It will spark your interest in some areas, and not in others. Then you can focus on what you are interested in, and undertake a more in depth exploration of these ideas, and the philosophers who tackled them. For this reason, I’m grateful this book exists.