Alain de Botton

Culture Shock: Arts on TV? Give me ‘Footballers’ Wives’ any time

Arts-show guests often seem afraid to say what they think. Like the football-free reality-TV show, we should forget about the art itself and focus on the characters doing the talking and the dynamics between them

Alain de Botton and Douglas Coupland: 21st-century industrial espionage

Alain de Botton explains the thinking that prompted him to marshal leading writers into closed organisations

Thinkers in online pop-culture tabloid reinterpretation shock

The ‘Philosophers’ Mail’, edited by Alain de Botton, re-examines some lowest common denominators

Another great day at sea as Geoff Dyer joins the crew of US warship

Essayist Geoff Dyer spent two weeks on board a US aircraft carrier in the Gulf. His fiction-fuelled insights have been published as a book

Tell Me About It: I’m worried about my porn addiction

I would love to have a relationship but worry I’m not able for it

Enough chit-chat: deeper conversation can lead us to enlightenment

Conversation salons, where people can talk openly about deep topics without having to fluff it up, are back

Art for therapy’s sake: can books and paintings cure what ails us?

Need to find a painting that can calm you in moments of stress? Or a book that can cure cynicism or a tendency to prevaricate? The use of art and literature as therapy is an old idea, but it’s making a comeback