How Proust Can Change Your Life, by Alain de Botton (Picador, £5.99 in UK)

Like many much-admired and little-read works of 20thcentury literature, Marcel Proust's A La Recherche Du Temps Perdu is the sort of tome which can profitably be consulted for a quotation or an opinion on just about any topic you care to mention. However, even the most dedicated Proustian would baulk at using the work of this lugubrious, reclusive hypochondriac as the basis for a self-help book. Enter Alain de Botton: playful, creative, clever, the author of three books which have become best-sellers in 16 languages, and a man who approaches Proust with the alacrity of a toddler approaching a paddling-pool. With chapter headings such as How To Love Life Today, How To Take Your Time and How To Be Happy In Love, and diverting digressions such as a visit to Monty Python's All-England Summarise Proust Competition and a delightful photograph of his girlfriend Kate, de Botton's marvellous little book encourages us to take a fresh look, not just at the life and work of Proust, but at ourselves. Yes, even those of us who never got further than page 17 of Du Cote de Chez Swann.