num_pages: 208
description: 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 distills from them that rare self-help manual: one that is actually helpful.Here, tendered in prose almost as luminous as it’s subject’s, is advice on cultivating friendships, suffering successfully, recognizing love and understanding why you should never sleep with someone on the first date. And here, too, is a generously perceptive literary biography that suggests that the master is as relevant today as he was in fin de siècle Paris. At once slyly ironic and genuinely wise, 
  How Proust Can Change Your Life
 is an unqualified delight.
language: English
title: How Proust Can Change Your Life
titlecomplete: How Proust Can Change Your Life
characters: Marcel Proust
genres: Essays, Humor, Self Help, Biography, Philosophy, Literature, Psychology, Nonfiction, Literary Criticism, Books About Books
ratings_count: 16939
publisher: Vintage