Try free for 30 days
-
The School of Life
- An Emotional Education
- Narrated by: Alain de Botton, Charlie Anson
- Length: 9 hrs and 26 mins
Failed to add items
Add to basket failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from Wish List failed.
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Buy Now for $25.99
No valid payment method on file.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also picked
-
On Confidence
- By: The School of Life, Alain de Botton
- Narrated by: Alain de Botton
- Length: 1 hr and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
We spend vast amounts of time acquiring confidence in narrow technical fields: quadratic equations or bioengineering; economics or pole vaulting. But we overlook the primordial need to acquire a more free-ranging variety of confidence - one that can serve us across a range of tasks: speaking to strangers at parties, asking someone to marry us, suggesting a fellow passenger turn down their music, changing the world. This is a guidebook to confidence, why we lack it and how we can acquire more of it in our lives.
-
A Simpler Life
- A Guide to Greater Serenity, Ease and Clarity
- By: The School of Life
- Narrated by: Rachel Lanning
- Length: 3 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
I loved it.
- By Alfonso on 18-05-2022
-
How Proust Can Change Your Life
- By: Alain de Botton
- Narrated by: Nicholas Bell
- Length: 5 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
Terri’s and improves with each listening
- By Peter C. Howie on 04-07-2019
-
On Self-Hatred
- Learning to Like Oneself
- By: The School of Life
- Narrated by: Rachel Lanning
- Length: 2 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Behind many of our problems lies an often ignored factor: we don’t like ourselves very much. We are sufferers of self-hatred. We tell ourselves the meanest things. It’s because of self-hatred that we tend to neglect our potential at work and get entangled in unfulfilling relationships, that we lack confidence in our social lives and suffer from anxiety, despair and imposter syndrome.
-
-
Too much analysis without providing practical help
- By Sina on 14-04-2024
-
How to Overcome Your Childhood
- How to Raise Contented, Interesting, and Resilient Children
- By: The School of Life
- Narrated by: Sonya Cullingford
- Length: 2 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When trying to deal with our current troubles and anxieties, it can be deeply irritating to be asked to consider our childhoods. They happened so long ago; we can probably barely remember, let alone relate to, the little person we once were. But one of the most powerful explanations for why we may, as adults, be struggling, is that we were denied the opportunity to fully be ourselves in our earliest years. This book is a guide to better understanding our younger selves in order to shape who we wish to be in the future.
-
-
Love and accept ourselves with all imperfections
- By Trevor Russell on 26-11-2023
-
Essays in Love
- By: Alain de Botton
- Narrated by: James Wilby
- Length: 7 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Essays in Love is a stunningly original love story. Taking in Aristotle, Wittgenstein, history, religion and Groucho Marx, Alain de Botton charts the progress of a love affair from the first kiss to argument and reconciliation, from intimacy and tenderness to the onset of anxiety and heartbreak.
-
-
Alain De Botton- fav comedian?
- By mariah.stock on 01-03-2022
-
On Confidence
- By: The School of Life, Alain de Botton
- Narrated by: Alain de Botton
- Length: 1 hr and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
We spend vast amounts of time acquiring confidence in narrow technical fields: quadratic equations or bioengineering; economics or pole vaulting. But we overlook the primordial need to acquire a more free-ranging variety of confidence - one that can serve us across a range of tasks: speaking to strangers at parties, asking someone to marry us, suggesting a fellow passenger turn down their music, changing the world. This is a guidebook to confidence, why we lack it and how we can acquire more of it in our lives.
-
A Simpler Life
- A Guide to Greater Serenity, Ease and Clarity
- By: The School of Life
- Narrated by: Rachel Lanning
- Length: 3 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
I loved it.
- By Alfonso on 18-05-2022
-
How Proust Can Change Your Life
- By: Alain de Botton
- Narrated by: Nicholas Bell
- Length: 5 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
Terri’s and improves with each listening
- By Peter C. Howie on 04-07-2019
-
On Self-Hatred
- Learning to Like Oneself
- By: The School of Life
- Narrated by: Rachel Lanning
- Length: 2 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Behind many of our problems lies an often ignored factor: we don’t like ourselves very much. We are sufferers of self-hatred. We tell ourselves the meanest things. It’s because of self-hatred that we tend to neglect our potential at work and get entangled in unfulfilling relationships, that we lack confidence in our social lives and suffer from anxiety, despair and imposter syndrome.
-
-
Too much analysis without providing practical help
- By Sina on 14-04-2024
-
How to Overcome Your Childhood
- How to Raise Contented, Interesting, and Resilient Children
- By: The School of Life
- Narrated by: Sonya Cullingford
- Length: 2 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When trying to deal with our current troubles and anxieties, it can be deeply irritating to be asked to consider our childhoods. They happened so long ago; we can probably barely remember, let alone relate to, the little person we once were. But one of the most powerful explanations for why we may, as adults, be struggling, is that we were denied the opportunity to fully be ourselves in our earliest years. This book is a guide to better understanding our younger selves in order to shape who we wish to be in the future.
-
-
Love and accept ourselves with all imperfections
- By Trevor Russell on 26-11-2023
-
Essays in Love
- By: Alain de Botton
- Narrated by: James Wilby
- Length: 7 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Essays in Love is a stunningly original love story. Taking in Aristotle, Wittgenstein, history, religion and Groucho Marx, Alain de Botton charts the progress of a love affair from the first kiss to argument and reconciliation, from intimacy and tenderness to the onset of anxiety and heartbreak.
-
-
Alain De Botton- fav comedian?
- By mariah.stock on 01-03-2022
-
Anxiety
- Meditations on the Anxious Mind
- By: The School of Life
- Narrated by: Rachel Lanning
- Length: 2 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This is a guide to anxiety: why we feel it, how we experience it when it strikes, and what we can do when we come under its influence. Across a series of essays that look at the subject from a number of angles, the tone is helpful, compassionate, and in the best sense, practical.
-
How to Think More Effectively
- A Guide to Greater Productivity, Insight, and Creativity
- By: The School of Life
- Narrated by: Sonya Cullingford
- Length: 2 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
What They Forgot to Teach You at School
- Essential Emotional Lessons Needed to Thrive
- By: The School of Life
- Narrated by: Sonya Cullingford
- Length: 3 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
We probably went to school for what felt like a very long time. We probably took care with our homework. Along the way we surely learned intriguing things about equations, the erosion of glaciers, the history of the Middle Ages, and the tenses of foreign languages. But why, despite all the lessons we sat through, were we never taught the really important things that dominate and trouble our lives: who to start a relationship with, how to trust people, how to understand one’s psyche, how to move on from sorrow or betrayal, and how to cope with anxiety and shame?
-
-
Terrific, as usual
- By Peter C. Howie on 30-12-2022
-
The Art of Travel
- By: Alain de Botton
- Narrated by: Nicholas Bell
- Length: 5 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Aside from love, few actvities seem to promise us as much happiness as going traveling: taking off for somewhere else, somewhere far from home, a place with more interesting weather, customs, and landscapes. But although we are inundated with advice on where to travel, few people seem to talk about why we should go and how we can become more fulfilled by doing so.
-
The Good Enough Parent
- How to Raise Contented, Interesting, and Resilient Children
- By: The School of Life
- Narrated by: Sonya Cullingford
- Length: 3 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Bringing up a child to be an authentic and mentally robust adult is one of life’s great challenges. It is also, fortunately, not a matter of luck. The Good Enough Parent is a compendium of life lessons, including how to say ‘no’ to a child you adore, how to look beneath the surface of ‘bad’ behavior to work out what might really be going on, how to encourage a child to be genuinely kind, and how to handle the moods and gloom of adolescence.
-
-
Will return to this again & again
- By Anonymous User on 15-05-2022
-
A Job to Love
- By: The School of Life
- Narrated by: Rachel Lanning
- Length: 5 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The idea that work might be fulfilling rather than just necessary is a recent invention. These days, in prosperous areas of the world, we don't only expect to get paid, we also expect to find meaning and satisfaction. It's a big ask and explains why so many people have an identity crisis in their work lives. A Job To Love is designed to help us better understand ourselves in order to find a job that is right for us. It explores the myths, traps and confusions that get in our way, and shows us how to develop new, effective attitudes and habits.
-
The School of Life: On Failure
- How to Succeed at Defeat
- By: The School of Life
- Narrated by: Rachel Lanning
- Length: 5 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This is a hopeful, consoling, gentle book about failure. Our societies talk a lot about success, but the reality is that no one gets through life without failing–in small and usually also in large ways. Sometimes our failures are very obvious, at other times, we feel we have to conceal them out of shame. This book encourages us to accept the role that failure plays for all of us and to feel compassion for ourselves for the messes we can’t help but make as we go through our lives.
-
-
Amazing book
- By Anonymous User on 29-01-2023
-
Self-Knowledge
- By: The School of Life
- Narrated by: Fiona Buckland
- Length: 1 hr and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Ancient Greece, when the philosopher Socrates was asked to sum up what all philosophical commandments could be reduced to, he replied: "Know yourself". Self-knowledge matters so much because it is only on the basis of an accurate sense of who we are that we can make reliable decisions - particularly around love and work. This book takes us on a journey into our deepest, most elusive selves and arms us with a set of tools to understand our characters properly.
-
-
Excellent
- By john on 08-01-2023
-
Calm
- By: The School of Life
- Narrated by: Rachel Lanning
- Length: 4 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Few life skills are as neglected, yet as important, as the ability to remain calm. Our very worst decisions and interactions are almost invariably the result of a loss of calm - and a descent into anxiety and agitation. Surprisingly, but very fortunately, our power to remain calm can be rehearsed and improved. We don’t have to stay where we are now: our responses to everyday challenges can dramatically alter. This is a book that patiently unpacks the causes of our greatest stresses and gives us a succession of arguments with which to defend ourselves against panic and fury.
-
The Psychology of Money
- Timeless Lessons on Wealth, Greed, and Happiness
- By: Morgan Housel
- Narrated by: Chris Hill
- Length: 5 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Money - investing, personal finance, and business decisions - is typically taught as a math-based field, where data and formulas tell us exactly what to do. But in the real world people don’t make financial decisions on a spreadsheet. They make them at the dinner table, or in a meeting room, where personal history, your own unique view of the world, ego, pride, marketing, and odd incentives are scrambled together. In The Psychology of Money, award-winning author Morgan Housel shares 19 short stories exploring the strange ways people think about money.
-
-
Terrible
- By Anonymous User on 04-08-2021
-
Tell Yourself a Better Lie
- Use the Power of Rapid Transformational Therapy to Edit Your Story and Rewrite Your Life.
- By: Marisa Peer
- Narrated by: Carlyss Peer
- Length: 8 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Our lives are defined by the stories we tell ourselves, but those stories aren't always true. Narratives that are based on outdated or irrelevant information can run (or ruin) our lives for years, even if those stories are wildly different from the objective reality that formed them.
-
-
Disappointing
- By Tina Jackson on 17-12-2022
-
Small Pleasures
- By: The School of Life
- Narrated by: Rachel Lanning
- Length: 5 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
We exhaust ourselves and the planet in the search for very large pleasures, while all around us lies a wealth of small pleasures, which—if we only pay more attention—can bring us solace and joy on a daily basis. This is a guidebook to life's small pleasures: everything from the distinct delight of holding a child's hand to the joy of watching the evening sky. It's an intriguing, evocative collection that will heighten our senses and return us to the world with newfound excitement and enthusiasm.
Publisher's Summary
Brought to you by Penguin.
*Introduction narrated by Alain de Botton*
THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER
The essential guide to how to live wisely and well in the twenty-first century - from Alain de Botton, the bestselling author of The Consolations of Philosophy, The Art of Travel and The Course of Love
This is an audiobook about everything you were never taught at school. It's about how to understand your emotions, find and sustain love, succeed in your career, fail well and overcome shame and guilt. It's also about letting go of the myth of a perfect life in order to achieve genuine emotional maturity. Written in a hugely accessible, warm and humane style, The School of Life is the ultimate guide to the emotionally fulfilled lives we all long for - and deserve.
This audiobook brings together ten years of essential and transformative research on emotional intelligence, with practical topics including:
- how to understand yourself
- how to master the dilemmas of relationships
- how to become more effective at work
- how to endure failure
- how to grow more serene and resilient
Critic Reviews
"What he has managed to do is remarkable: to help us think better so that we may live better lives." (Irish Times)
"A serious and optimistic set of practical ideas that could improve and alter the way we live." (Jeanette Winterson, The Times)
"Alain de Botton likes to take big, complex subjects and write about them with thoughtful and deceptive innocence." (Observer)
More from the same
What listeners say about The School of Life
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Beth
- 09-09-2020
Thought provoking and a call to action
I really enjoyed the journey that this book took me on. Regardless if you agree with everything it is an excellent thought experiment and challenges some of our preconceptions
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Anonymous User
- 04-07-2020
I feel so much better now.
What an amazing, amusing and must read book. Thank you Allain for letting me know that my silliness, craziness and strangeness is, in fact, ok and very normal. I feel whole for the first time in a long time. I highly recommend this book for its wonderful insights into normal human behaviour - the why’s and how’s - that, until now, I thought was shameful and broken.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Charlotte
- 04-02-2020
Everyone should read this to improve who they are.
This book is full of self-reflection, epiphanies about the human condition, and encourages a wider appreciation for the world and the people in it.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Edwin Proper
- 24-04-2021
top 10
loved this book. Learnt a number of new le
I've lessons while other concepts are covered in a different view point.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Deanne
- 13-03-2024
Everyone Should Read This at 17 years old
Everyone should read this at 17 years old and then every year after that. Straightforward thinking that takes years to understand and this could be a quicker way to learn if you listen. Thoroughly enjoyed listening and sad when it finished.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Bruce McNatty
- 20-10-2019
Middle Class English Advice for Life
Has some good advice for " life." But the style of presentation is so very middle class English, and seems to be directed at the Worried Well which became dull in places. There are also some quite strong pronouncements made throughout the book, but with no sources offered to substantiate them. Are they evidence - based, or written just from the author's perspective? But the book contains lots of great food for thought and is well worth the read/listen.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Alex McMaster
- 26-05-2021
Exceptional
This book is relentlessly practical and valuable, and some is something to be cherished. This will help you in making life a richer, deeper, and more meaningful experience. Please pass it on to anyone you know.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Ginaya Chaston
- 11-07-2021
Highly recommend
Everyone should read/listen to this book to gain perspective and understanding of the lives we lead
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Anonymous User
- 18-02-2021
Really enjoyed it!
It was a little heavy and slow in the beginning, but some great take-aways on human psychology once it got into the meat of it. I think the second time around would be even better!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Nahida
- 18-05-2023
The narrator was different from the sample
Alain de Botton was the used as narrator for the sample and at the start of the book, but soon after the intro, the narrator was changed. The book content is fantastic but I found the narrator too hard to listen to.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful