Embracing the ordinary
Subtitle: lessons from the champions of everyday life
By: Michael Foley
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 2012
Place of publication: London
Language: eng
Number of pages: 327
ISBN-13: 9781849839129; 9781849839143
Subjects: Contentment; Quality of life
Other titles: Lessons from the champions of everyday life
Description: "Nothing is less known than what seems familiar. The ordinary is always the exceptional in disguise. Everything happens when nothing is happening. It has always been difficult to appreciate everyday life, often devalued as dreary, banal and burdensome, and never more so than in a culture besotted with fantasy, celebrity and glamour. Yet many writers and artists have celebrated the ordinary, and many philosophers have explained the rewards of paying attention to the here and now. With characteristic will and earthiness, Michael Foley -- author of bestseller 'The Age of Absurdity' -- draws on the work of 'champions of the ordinary', such as James Joyce and Marcel Proust, to encourage delight in the oddity of the everyday world. With astute observation and subversive glee, Foley relishes such things as the banality of everyday speech, the complexity of everyday psychology, the marvels of consciousness and memory, the ludicrousness of snobbery, love and sex, and the pleasures of the everyday environments of city, office and home. It is all more fascinating, comical and mysterious than you think"--Publisher's description, back cover.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: 1. The significance of the insignificant. All aboard the Orient Express! ; The high priests of low life; title: 2. The Holy Trinity of re-enchantment. Losing the plot : the imaginative vision ; Getting the joke : the comic vision ; Consecrating the commonplace : the spiritual vision; title: 3. What we say and what we do. The opera of everyday speech ; The masquerade of everyday behaviour; title: 4. The everyday self. The miracle of consciousness and memory ; The madness of status and snobbery ; The weirdness of love and sex; title: 5. The everyday environment. The city ; The office ; Home; title: 6. The Centre for the Appreciation of Everyday life. The Centre for the Appreciation of Everyday Life.