Embracing the Ordinary: Lessons From the Champions of Everyday Life

Michael Foley

Jul 2012 · Kuthengiswe ngu-Simon and Schuster

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'In recession-chastened, soddenly staycationing Britain, Foley may well have devised a new bestseller format: a how-to book offering a way of escape ... [a] lovely book'  Guardian
 
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, with characteristic wit and earthiness, Michael Foley - author of the bestselling The Age of Absurdity - draws on the works of writers, thinkers and artists who have celebrated and examined the ordinary life, and encourages us to delight in the complexities of the everyday.

With astute observation, Foley brings fresh insights to such things as the banality of everyday speech, the madness and weirdness of snobbery, love and sex, and the strangeness of the everyday environment, such as the office. It is all more fascinating, comical and mysterious than you think.

Intelligent, funny and entertaining, Foley shows us how to find contentment and satisfaction by embracing the ordinary things in life.

'A convincing argument for the beauty of the seemingly banal… ' Scotsman

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Michael Foley was born in Derry, Northern Ireland, but has lived most of his adult life in London, working for twenty-three years as a Lecturer in Information Technology at the University of Westminster before retiring in 2007 to concentrate on full-time writing. He has published critically-acclaimed poetry, novels and non-fiction, including The Age of Absurdity (Simon & Schuster 2010), which was a bestseller and has been translated into seven languages.