The News: A User's Manual

· Sold by Vintage
3.3
3 reviews
Ebook
272
Pages
Eligible

About this ebook

The news is everywhere. We can’t stop constantly checking it on our computer screens, but what is this doing to our minds?
 
We are never really taught how to make sense of the torrent of news we face every day, writes Alain de Botton (author of the best-selling The Architecture of Happiness), but this has a huge impact on our sense of what matters and of how we should lead our lives. In his dazzling new book, de Botton takes twenty-five archetypal news stories—including an airplane crash, a murder, a celebrity interview and a political scandal—and submits them to unusually intense analysis with a view to helping us navigate our news-soaked age. He raises such questions as Why are disaster stories often so uplifting? What makes the love lives of celebrities so interesting? Why do we enjoy watching politicians being brought down? Why are upheavals in far-off lands often so boring?
 
In The News: A User’s Manual, de Botton has written the ultimate guide for our frenzied era, certain to bring calm, understanding and a measure of sanity to our daily (perhaps even hourly) interactions with the news machine.

(With black-and-white illustrations throughout.)

Ratings and reviews

3.3
3 reviews
A Google user
January 20, 2016
The book starts great, discussing how to control the influx of trash news in modern times...but then confusingly becomes a plea for "news" sources (he doesn't differentiate between facebook, newspapers or bloggers) to pull us in through emotional pleas, trying to bring every story to life. With todays anxiety inducing, flashing clickbait headlines blasted in our face at an ever increasing frequency, I struggle to understand how less objectivity and more emotional context helps anyone understand the world.
1 person found this review helpful
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Logan Smith
June 26, 2023
Lovely 😍
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About the author

Alain de Botton is the author of nonfiction works on subjects ranging from love and travel to architecture and philosophy. His best-selling books include How Proust Can Change Your Life, The Art of Travel and The Architecture of Happiness. He lives in London, where he founded The School of Life (www.theschooloflife.com) and Living Architecture (www.living-architecture.co.uk).

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