There's a ritual of the modern workplace - one you've heard and most likely indulged in yourself. It's the call and response we go through when you ask a workmate how they're doing: 'Busy!' 'So busy.' It is pretty obviously a boast disguised as a complaint. And our simultaneously grim and half chuckled reply comes as a kind of congratulation: 'Ha, better than the opposite.' When did we start doing that? As if he didn't have enough to do, Oliver Burkeman explores this epidemic of busyness to reveal that it may not be what it at first seems. 

Bestselling author Oliver Burkeman is well known for his books and radio programmes exploring how we can lead meaningful and productive lives in an age of overwhelm. This time, he brings his keen sense of the ridiculous to bear on our obsession with convenience, looking at the hidden pitfalls of a life of ease. In these five episodes, Oliver attempts to assess the consequences of our reliance on convenience.

How can you reconcile yourself with the lives you will never lead, with possibilities foreclosed, and with nostalgia for lost youth? How can you accept the failings of the past, the sense of futility in the tasks that consume the present, and the prospect of death that blights the future? In this self-help book with a difference, Kieran Setiya confronts the inevitable challenges of adulthood and middle age, showing how philosophy can help you thrive. You will learn why missing out might be a good thing, how options are overrated, and when you should be glad you made a mistake.

The modern world can be a complicated, frenzied, and noisy place, filled with too many options, products, ideas and opinions. That explains why what many of us long for is simplicity: a life that can be more pared down, peaceful, and focused on the essentials. But finding simplicity is not always easy; it isn’t just a case of emptying out our closets or trimming back commitments in our diaries. True simplicity requires that we understand the roots of our distractions – and develop a canny respect for the stubborn reasons why things can grow complex and overwhelming.

Oliver Burkeman explores why people are often more successful - as are organisations, armies and governments - when they focus on reasons they are likely to fail; asks where happiness comes from, and whether we look for it in the wrong places; explores a phenomenon that has come to be called 'fungineering' – attempts to boost happiness in the workplace; and confronts what many of us see as the most negative of all experiences: death. 

It's difficult to ask anybody "how are you?" without hearing the word "busy" somewhere in their response. We feel overwhelmed by busyness because of the demands on our time: our inboxes and our to-do lists are bulging, a huge amount of people expect things from us and our organisations are trying to do more with fewer people. But it doesn't have to be that way. In reality, busyness isn't essential. Yes, there is a lot to do, but believing you're always busy because you have so much to do is both false and unhelpful.

What drives our political and moral beliefs? What makes us like some things and dislike others? What shapes how we behave, and misbehave, in a group? What makes you, you? For centuries, philosophers and scholars have described human behaviour in terms of sex, power and money. In The Status Game, best-selling author Will Storr radically turns this thinking on its head by arguing that it is our irrepressible craving for status that ultimately defines who we are.

Die with Zero presents a startling new and provocative philosophy as well as practical guide on how to get the most out of your money—and out of your life. It's intended for those who place lifelong memorable experiences far ahead of simply making and accumulating money for one's so-called Golden Years. In short, Bill Perkins wants to rescue you from over-saving and under-living. Regardless of your age, Die with Zero will teach you Perkins' plan for optimizing your life, stage by stage, so you're fully engaged and enjoying what you've worked and saved for.

In many ways, we’re more comfortable than ever before. But could our sheltered, temperature-controlled, overfed, underchallenged lives actually be the leading cause of many our most urgent physical and mental health issues? In this gripping investigation, award-winning journalist Michael Easter seeks out off-the-grid visionaries, disruptive genius researchers, and mind-body conditioning trailblazers who are unlocking the life-enhancing secrets of a counterintuitive solution: discomfort.

Many books believe they know how you should live. But each book disagrees with the next. In How to Live, each chapter believes it knows how you should live. And each chapter disagrees with the next.

In this irreverent and illuminating audiobook, acclaimed writer and scientist Leonard Mlodinow shows us how randomness, chance, and probability reveal a tremendous amount about our daily lives, and how we misunderstand the significance of everything from a casual conversation to a major financial setback. As a result, successes and failures in life are often attributed to clear and obvious causes, when in actuality they are more profoundly influenced by chance.

We know that our minds are capable of great things because, every now and then, they come out with a brilliant idea or two. However, our minds are also unpredictable, spending large stretches of time idling or distracting themselves. This is a book about how to optimize these beautiful yet fitful instruments so that they can more regularly and generously produce the sort of insights and ideas we need to fulfill our potential and achieve the contentment we deserve.

One of the great fears many of us face is that despite all our effort and striving, we will discover at the end that we have wasted our life. In A Guide to the Good Life, William B. Irvine plumbs the wisdom of Stoic philosophy, one of the most popular and successful schools of thought in ancient Rome, and shows how its insight and advice are still remarkably applicable to modern lives. In A Guide to the Good Life, Irvine offers a refreshing presentation of Stoicism, showing how this ancient philosophy can still direct us toward a better life.

In Wisdom of the Ancients, Neil Oliver takes us back in time to grab hold of the ideas buried in forgotten cultures and early civilisations. From Laetoli footprints in Tanzania to Keralan rituals, stone circles and cave paintings, Oliver takes us on a global journey through antiquity. A master storyteller, drawing on immense knowledge of our ancient past, he distils this wisdom into 12 messages that have endured the test of time and invites us to consider how these might apply to our lives today. The result is powerful and inspirational, moving and profound.

For anyone who ever wondered what Marcel Proust had in mind when he wrote the one-and-a-quarter-million words of In Search of Lost Time (while bedridden no less), Alain de Botton has the answer. For, in this stylish, erudite and frequently hilarious book, de Botton dips deeply into Proust’s life and work - his fiction, letter, and conversations – and distils from them that rare self-help manual: one that is actually helpful.