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Life Is Hard
- Author
- Kieran Setiya
- Narrator
- Kieran Setiya
- Publisher
- Cornerstone
- Publish Date
- 6 October 2022
- Run Time
- 5 hours 52 minutes
- Format
- Audiobook
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What to expect
Brought to you by Penguin.
Pain, Loneliness, Grief, Injustice ... Hope?
Life is hard - as the past few years have made painfully clear. From personal trauma to the injustice and absurdity of the world, sometimes simply going on can feel too much.
But could there be solace - and even hope - in acknowledging the hardships of the human condition? Might doing so free us from the tyranny of striving for our "best lives" and help us find warmth, humanity, and humour in the lives we actually have? Could it inspire in us the desire for a better world?
In this profound and personal book, Kieran Setiya shows how philosophy can help us find our way. He shares his own experience with chronic pain and the consolation that comes from making sense of it. He asks what we can learn from loneliness and loss about the value of human life. And he explores how we can fail with grace, confront injustice, and search for meaning in the face of despair. Drawing on ancient and modern philosophy, as well as fiction, comedy, social science and personal essay, Life is Hard is a book for this moment - a work of solace and compassion. It draws us towards justice, for ourselves and others, by acknowledging what it means to be alive.
© Kieran Setiya 2022 (P) Penguin Audio 2022
Critics Review
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Life Is Hard is a humane consolation for challenging times. Reading it is like speaking with a thoughtful friend who never tells you to cheer up, but, by offering gentle companionship and a change of perspective, makes you feel better anyway.
The New York Times Book Review
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At last a philosopher tackles the meaning of life and comes up with useful answers
The Sunday Times
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Through carefully crafted examples, [Kieran Setiya] makes the case that philosophy can help us navigate the adversities of human life ... No life worth living is free of suffering and pain. Better to face it with the clarity to which philosophy, at its best, aspires
Guardian
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Attentive readers of this humane, intelligent book will come away with a firmer grasp and better descriptions of
whatever it is that ails them or those they cherishEconomist
See more reviews See fewer reviews
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Kieran Setiya argues that certain bracing challenges-loneliness, failure, ill health, grief, and so on-are essentially unavoidable ... But it's good, the book shows, to acknowledge hard experiences and ask how they've helped us grow tougher, kinder, and wiser
New Yorker
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Exceptionally rich and subtle
Financial Times
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An eloquent, moving, witty and above all useful demonstration of philosophy's power to help us weather the storms of being human - not with rarefied theories about the best way to live, but by making the best of life as it really is. Kieran Setiya is both an unusually gifted writer and as imperfect a human being as the rest of us, which is to say the perfect companion for the journey.
Oliver Burkeman, author of FOUR THOUSAND WEEKS
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While there is no skimping on academic rigour, he makes existential inquiry relatable - offering gentle advice on how one might approach such experiences as grief and failure.
Irish Times
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Life may be hard, but Kieran Setiya shows us better ways to think about it and how, despite everything, that can give us hope.
Katherine May, author of WINTERING
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In LIFE IS HARD, Kieran Setiya shows us the gift that philosophy becomes when it removes its mask of impersonality to reveal its human face. His insights are stunning, his compassion sustaining. Anyone susceptible to life's hardships must read this book -- which means that everyone must read it.
Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, author of PLATO AT THE GOOGLEPLEX
User Reviews
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Details
- Author
- Kieran Setiya
- Narrator
- Kieran Setiya
- Duration
- 5 hours 52 minutes
- Release Date
- 6 October 2022
- ISBN
- 9781529151411
- Format
- Audiobook
- Publisher
- Cornerstone
- Genre
- Philosophy, Ethics and moral philosophy, Self-help, personal development and practical advice, Popular philosophy, Coping with / advice about loneliness / solitude, Coping with / advice about death and bereavement, Coping with / advice about chronic or long-term illness or conditions
Synopsis
Brought to you by Penguin.Pain, Loneliness, Grief, Injustice ... Hope?Life is hard - as the past few years have made painfully clear. From personal trauma to the injustice and absurdity of the world, sometimes simply going on can feel too much.But could there be solace - and even hope - in acknowledging the hardships of the human condition? Might doing so free us from the tyranny of striving for our "best lives" and help us find warmth, humanity, and humour in the lives we actually have? Could it inspire in us the desire for a better world?In this profound and personal book, Kieran Setiya shows how philosophy can help us find our way. He shares his own experience with chronic pain and the consolation that comes from making sense of it. He asks what we can learn from loneliness and loss about the value of human life. And he explores how we can fail with grace, confront injustice, and search for meaning in the face of despair. Drawing on ancient and modern philosophy, as well as fiction, comedy, social science and personal essay, Life is Hard is a book for this moment - a work of solace and compassion. It draws us towards justice, for ourselves and others, by acknowledging what it means to be alive.© Kieran Setiya 2022 (P) Penguin Audio 2022
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