The School of Life

An interactive guide to our complex and elusive inner selves.

One of the most difficult tasks we face as humans is figuring out who we are. "Describe yourself" can be a surprisingly difficult task. Sometimes, we need prompts and suggestions to engage and energize us.

With unusual, entertaining, and playful exercises, this journal is designed to help us tease out and organize who we are. With beautiful designs by Marcia Mihotich throughout and mini essays on topics like relationships and work, this book shows us how our complicated, beautiful, and sometimes painful experiences all contribute to the richness of who we are.

• UNCONVENTIONAL AND PROVOCATIVE QUESTIONS to prompt honest self-reflection.
• AN INTERACTIVE JOURNAL OF SELF DISCOVERY with space for written answers.
• FULL COLOR ILLUSTRATIONS THROUGHOUT
• A COLLECTION OF MINI ESSAYS on topics like relationships, work, and culture.

We’re dependent on language to express how we feel, and yet words often feel vague or inaccurate. There are lots of moods, needs and feelings that our own language has not yet properly pinned down. 

The perfect word - even if it comes from abroad - helps us explain ourselves to other people, and its existence quietly reassures us (and everyone else) that a state of mind is not really rare, just rarely spoken of. 

This set of cards defines some of our favorite words from the world’s languages and marries them up with complementary images to create cards that bring some of our most important feelings into focus. We’ve created them to prompt greater reflection about the nature of language and emotions. These cards are designed to reflect the excitement we find in encountering an old photograph or an object in a flea market or antique stall, one that feels familiar yet foreign and is thus infinitely evocative.

Examples:

DUENDE (Spanish): A heightened sense of emotion created by a moving piece of art. 

FORELSKET (Norwegian): The euphoric feeling at the beginning of love. We can’t believe someone so perfect has wandered into our lives. They enhance and complete us. We might report: ‘I was overpowered by forelsket as our fingers interlaced…’ 

YŪGEN (Japanese): Gives a name to a mood in which one feels that the universe as a whole possesses a mysterious and elusive beauty. Moonlight, snow on distant mountains, birds flying very high in the evening sky, and watching the sun rise over the ocean all feed this sensibility.

Alain de Botton's redemptive volume charts a course from collapse to recovery with kindness, compassion and wisdom.

“Alain de Botton, one of our era’s most uncommonly perceptive, lyrical, and lucid existential contemplatives.” — The Marginalian

A Therapeutic Journey is a collection of essays about mental challenge and health. Written with kindness, knowledge and sympathy, it is a practical guide to well-being and a source of consolation and companionship in what might be some of our loneliest, most anguished moments.

Alain de Botton explores how we can cope with a variety of forms of mental pain and illness, from the mild to the severe. It considers how and why we might become ill; how we can explain things to friends, family and colleagues; how we can find our ways towards recovery; and how we can build resilience, so as to live wisely alongside our difficulties.

At heart this is a book about happiness - about regaining the thread of our lives, rediscovering meaning, and finding our way back to connection, warmth and joy.

A guide for helping us focus on what we need to be fulfilled so that we can direct our energies and thoughts most effectively

Finding a partner.
Paying off the mortgage.
Reconnecting with my parents.
Less screen time.

It can be hard to decide what we really want to achieve in our lives; our ambitions are often scattered, diverse and difficult to pin down. This is a tool for helping us focus on what we need to be fulfilled so that we can direct our energies and thoughts most effectively. It can be hard to decide what we really want to achieve in our lives; our ambitions are often scattered, diverse and difficult to pin down. 

This attractive box contains 160 cards detailing our most common ambitions and longings, along with instructions on how to reflect on our goals, arrange them in a logical order of priorities and, where necessary, weigh up trade-offs. Using the cards will help us to reveal our true goals, even our purpose in life. The cards can be displayed, photographed or kept close to hand as a reminder of the path ahead. 

A simple-seeming but ingenious psychological tool for converting hunches and dreams into a realizable future.

This book explores ideas around minimalism, simplicity and how to live comfortably with less.

We live in a complicated, frenzied, and noisy world, filled with too much information, too many products, ideas, and opinions. As a result, many of us long for simplicity: a pared down, more peaceful, and less cluttered life. 

This book is a guide to the simpler lives we crave and deserve. In it, we learn about Zen Buddhism, modernist architecture, monasteries, psychoanalysis, and why three good friends and a few treasured belongings are enough. 

Taking a psychological approach, the book also guides us toward inner simplicity. For too long we've been drowning in excess, clutter, and confusion. A Simpler Life helps us tune out the static and focus on what really matters.

• DECLUTTER YOUR LIFE practical ways to get rid of physical and psychological clutter.
• HOW TO BE DIRECT advice on adopting a simpler, more straight-forward mindset.
• THE APPEAL OF MINIMALISM looks at why more of us are drawn to a pared down existence.
• HOW TO SIMPLIFY everything from relationships, social life, lifestyle, and work.

An insightful and consoling guide to the melancholic state of mind.

This is a book that celebrates the most neglected but valuable emotion we can feel: melancholy. Melancholy isn’t depression, rage, or bitterness.  It’s a serene, wise, and kindly response to the difficulties of being alive. It helps us navigate a wise and rational middle ground between extreme despair and naïve optimism.

But melancholy is a well-kept secret. It isn't celebrated or recommended. It remains relatively unexplored in a hyper-competitive, noisy, frantic age.

This book carefully collects and interprets a wide range of universally recognizable forms of melancholy, rendering us less confused by our precious yet elusive feelings. We discover everything from the melancholy of a Sunday evening and the melancholy of adolescence to the melancholy of parties and the infatuated melancholy of having a crush.

Offering a rich and varied portrait of melancholy and its range of emotions, this book leads the reader toward deeper insight, more authentic acceptance, and more honest self-compassion.

• AN IN-DEPTH EXPLORATION OF A COMPLEX EMOTION through the lens of art, architecture, literature, and philosophy.
• HOW TO INTERPRET AND ACCEPT our melancholy moods.
• INCREASE SELF AWARENESS through meditating on melancholy.
• EXAMINES 35 VARIETIES OF MELANCHOLY including: Dating and Melancholy, Loneliness and Melancholy, Adolescence and Melancholy, and Politics and Melancholy.

A toolkit of 100 questions to spark exciting and meaningful conversations. 

It isn’t easy to get into a good conversation. Many of our best ones seem to happen by chance. Far from it! A great conversation starts with someone asking a great question. Inside this portable, design-forward box, on beautiful cards, you’ll find 100 of the very best questions around—carefully designed to get a group of people into exceptionally entertaining and meaningful conversations.

Therapeutic exercises to help couples nurture patience, forgiveness, and humor. 

Love is not just an emotion - it's a skill. And just like any other skill, we need to practice in order to get good at it. 

We often have fairy tale expectations for our romantic relationships, but realistically, after a heady and passion-fueled start, we end up in partnerships that are a confusing tangle of hope, distance, boredom, loyalty, and betrayal. 

Full of accessible and though-provoking exercises, this workbook fosters understanding, patience, forgiveness, humor, and resilience in the face of the many hurdles that invariably arise in a long term relationship. 

Couples are guided to have particular conversations, analyze their feelings, explain parts of themselves to one another, and undertake rituals that clear the air and help recover hope and passion. The goal is always to unblock channels of feeling and improve communication - and to have fun while doing it.

No one can be intuitively good at relationships. We all need to do some homework to become the best partners and couples we can be.

• A GUIDED JOURNAL WITH OVER 60 EXERCISES to encourage couples to share their feelings with each other and open up about their insecurities.
• A THERAPEUTIC WORKBOOK drawing from research from The School of Life’s therapy department.
• INCLUDES INTERACTIVE SPACES to complete the activities and illustrations throughout.
• BEAUTIFULLY PRODUCED hardcover in high end gift format.

Calmness isn’t just a state of mind. It’s an essential life skill that, when practiced, can dramatically improve our everyday lives. This fascinating and pragmatic book argues that we can educate ourselves in the art of keeping calm not through slow breathing or special teas but through thinking. It patiently unpacks the root causes of our collective anxieties and gives us a succession of highly persuasive, beautiful, and sometimes dryly comic arguments with which to defend ourselves against panic and frustration. Part of a new essential paperback series from The School of Life, covering a range of emotional lessons needed in order to lead fulfilled and happy lives.

• THE ESSENTIAL MENTAL TOOLKIT provides readers with the skills needed to face life’s challenges with serenity. 
• EXPLORES THE ROOT CAUSES of our collective cultural anxieties. 
• A REFRESHING APPROACH to the art of finding calm in a chaotic world. 
• CLASSIC BLACK & WHITE IMAGES throughout. 
• PART OF THE NEW PAPERBACK SERIES 'LESSONS FOR LIFE'

A guide to identifying, nurturing and growing our insight and creativity for more effective thinking.

We know that our minds are capable of great things. But they are also unpredictable. Our thoughts tend to wander and our minds are either distracted or idle. This book teaches us how to optimize these beautiful yet fitful instruments so that they can more regularly and generously produce the sort of insights and ideas we need to fulfill our potential.

We learn how to hold on to fleeting thoughts before they disappear through anxiety and fear, what time of day is best for constructive work, and how to avoid predictable approaches to our largest problems. The result is a user's manual to that most wondrous, intermittent, and always baffling, organ: the human mind.

• WITH CHAPTERS ON CUMULATIVE, EMPATHETIC, AND SKEPTICAL THINKING
• A PRACTICAL AND INFORMATIVE GUIDE for individuals and businesses alike.
• INFORMED BY RESEARCH FROM THE SCHOOL OF LIFE FOR BUSINESS whose clients include Facebook, Google, Nike, and Sony Music.
• PART OF THE SCHOOL OF LIFE'S ESSENTIAL SKILLS SERIES other titles include The Emotionally Intelligent Office and How to Get on With Your Colleagues.

A practical and playful guide to balancing and maintaining physical and mental harmony.

The modern world can present the body as a machine that just needs to be regularly exercised. However, it is a remarkably sensitive organ in which a lot of our pain and hope is stored and that we need to interpret and handle with subtlety. This impact of our body upon our mind is something which needs to be explored as it is easy to pay attention to one more than the other and to ignore the crucial balance between the two.

This is a book filled with reflections and exercises designed to help us live more harmoniously and maturely within both mind and body. It gives guidance on how to calm our minds with bodily exercises that work on the real sources of our anxieties. It suggests how to be less rigid in, and timid about, our bodies and how to relax into them in a way we might not have done for far too long. It offers ideas on how to accept the way we look, and how to treat the body in order for it to assist the mind in yielding its very best ideas. The impacts of activities such as singing, dancing and art are explored along with the liberation of spirit that these might offer.

This is a book, both theoretical and practical, that will improve our relationship between our physical and mental selves and allow us a route to a life of greater self-assurance, wisdom, and freedom to be ourselves.

*Contains explicit/adult content

• BLENDING THE PRACTICAL AND THEORETICAL with playful exercises backed by research.
• A RANGE OF EXERCISES you can do anytime, anywhere.
• DISCOVER THE POWER OF THE MIND-BODY CONNECTION and tap into your body’s innate wisdom.
• CULTIVATE CALM by connecting to your body and surroundings.
• BODY NEUTRALITY learn to accept and feel comfortable with how you look.

20 Menus with 12 questions per menu, across varying themes - to foster friendship and bring meals to life. 

So many of us spend a lot of time getting the food right when we invite others over for a meal, but in the end what makes a really great dinner party is the conversation.

Typically, we stumble on fascinating conversation topics by chance. Shyness can hold us back. Too often, we revert to polite, but not especially inspired, staples or anecdotes. Arranged to accompany each course, these twenty beautifully designed Conversation Menus lead us artfully to some of the most fascinating and revealing conversation topics. They invite us to open up about themes such as love, money, travel ambition, self-knowledge and the meaning of life. They contain questions and invitations to discussion that will raise smiles, build friendships and foster the best kind of intimacy, ensuring that our meals together can be everything we hoped.

Exercises to build better team dynamics 

In order to work well together, people need more than just technical skills; they need to get to know and understand each other. We know this intuitively: it’s why fortunes are spent on team-building exercises. But because expensive off-site work retreats aren’t always possible, The School of Life has designed a game that requires nothing more than a room and a little free time. 

Teamwork contains 100 questions that playfully and sensitively introduce us to our colleagues by setting up the best kinds of conversation about everything from our childhoods to our values. Played as a group, these cards promote conversations that humanize colleagues in each other’s eyes and help to create an atmosphere of forgiving and kind collegiality around the office. A proven, easy way to turn individuals into a team. 

Topics covered include: Flaws, Fears & Regrets, Character Work, Likes & Interests, The Past

Whether or not we believe in religion, many of us feel drawn toward a spiritual life. Maybe we love cathedral architecture, Mozart's Requiem, or Buddhist literature.The School of Life is a secular organization fascinated by the gaps left in modern society by the gradual disappearance of religion. They're interested in how hard it is to find a sense of community, why rituals are dying out, and when we crave the solemn quiet only found in religious buildings. This book lays out how we might absorb the best lessons of religion, update them for our times and incorporate them into our daily lives and societies-without taking on the theological or doctrinal elements.

60 cards to prompt us to share our intimate desires 

Although the pleasures of sex are well known, we too often forget about the pleasures of talking about sex: what feels nice, what we like to daydream about, what we long for, our fantasies and where they come from. But what could be more interesting - or sexy? 

This pack of cards is designed to spark the best kind of pillow talk: it helps us explore sex with intimacy, playfulness and intellectual curiosity. Here are sixty questions to provoke some of the best conversations possible, guaranteed to leave us with a new sense of liberation and closeness.

The School of Life’s approach to calm - in a pocket format.

In the third of a series of pocket books, The School of Life has distilled its most essential ideas on serenity in order to produce a bitesize manual that is both useful and entertaining. 

Knowing how to fight off anxiety and remain calm belong to the greatest skills we can ever aspire to. Only with a serene state of mind are we in any position to enjoy all the other good things in life: friendship, love, family or work. Here is selection of The School of Life’s finest essays on the art of serenity. They teach us how to achieve the correct perspective on our problems, how to understand the worst of our fears and how to surround ourselves with the sort of people who can help us in our quest for a less anxious existence. 

We have – most of us – already spent far too long on needless worry; here at last is a crucial guide to the less turbulent future we deserve.

Alain de Botton's redemptive volume - now in paperback - charts a course from collapse to recovery with kindness, compassion and wisdom.

“Alain de Botton, one of our era’s most uncommonly perceptive, lyrical, and lucid existential contemplatives.” — The Marginalian

A Therapeutic Journey is a collection of essays about mental challenge and health. Written with kindness, knowledge and sympathy, it is a practical guide to well-being and a source of consolation and companionship in what might be some of our loneliest, most anguished moments.

Alain de Botton explores how we can cope with a variety of forms of mental pain and illness, from the mild to the severe. It considers how and why we might become ill; how we can explain things to friends, family and colleagues; how we can find our ways towards recovery; and how we can build resilience, so as to live wisely alongside our difficulties.

At heart this is a book about happiness - about regaining the thread of our lives, rediscovering meaning, and finding our way back to connection, warmth and joy.

60 cards for understanding how we feel

It can sometimes be very hard to know – let alone tell others – what we actually feel. This is a product to help us begin this therapeutic journey.

Each card puts a finger on an emotion that we might be experiencing without being able to pin it down exactly. The cards range in themes from the happy to the sad, the agitated to the serene. The backs of the cards are beautifully illustrated by artist Helen Cann, and can be arranged into a mindful map of emotions.

Use with a friend, a partner, a therapist, a child or a parent – in any situation where we want to sift through a range of emotional options in order to define what is truly coursing through us. With charm and ease, we become clearer to ourselves – and a lot more understandable and open to others.

When Socrates was asked to define our highest purpose as humans, he said, “To know ourselves.”  This advice holds true. Without self-knowledge, all other efforts are in vain. 

The second title in the '40 Images' series, Self-Knowledge in 40 Images takes us on a tour of certain key ideas that we need to befriend our deeper selves, accompanied by the work of photographers and artists such as David Hockney, Cy Twombly, Edgar Degas, Isabella La Rocca González and Elise Corten. Featuring culturally and historically diverse artwork alongside a series of elegant essays inviting contemplation, this book helps us to understand how our childhoods have shaped us, what difficulties we characteristically experience in relationships and what our purpose should be. 

Modern society gives us no shortage of ambitions. We will have landed on the one that can finally brings us peace and freedom when we are ready – with the help of this book – to begin the inward journey: self knowledge.

Pair with the Know Yourself Prompt Cards, designed to help lead you through the important task of knowing yourself a little better in life.

The follow-up to What Are You Feeling, a 2023 Eureka Honor Award Winner

A children’s guide to emotional empathy—follow Detective Feelings as he helps people identify and investigate their feelings 

It’s important to think about what others might be feeling, so we can understand the people around us better and be a good friend. Sometimes, it can be difficult to guess what someone else might be feeling, or their emotions may not be what we expect. 

What Are They Feeling? takes children on an exploration of the feelings of others. We follow Detective Feelings as they look for clues about how someone is feeling through their expression, body language and the situation. Are they smiling or frowning? What is happening around them? Has someone else been telling a joke or saying something a bit mean? 

We discover why empathy and sympathy are important, and how you can feel empathy for someone when you may not share the same experiences or problems as them, such as having to move to another country, or starting a new school.

Vibrant and amusing illustrations by award-winning illustrator Daniel Gray-Barnett bring the adventures of Detective Feelings to life.

The key ingredients to contented love—quintessential advice on relationships from The School of Life, with an approachable tone

It can sometimes seem a mystery why some couples stay together and thrive – while many more split up or drag on scratchily. While we might think happy love is left to chance, there are some identifiable secrets that underpin good relationships that we can learn and put into practice.

The first title of a new series, The Secrets of Successful Relationships draws upon the expertise of The School of Life therapists to teach us the key ingredients of contented love. Chapters such as “Learning to Love Oneself”, “Knowing What to Overlook”, “Good Listening” and “The Importance of Bad Dates” prompt us to think about how we can achieve success in love. In a tone that’s warm, encouraging and funny, we learn: how to communicate effectively, how to manage differences, what to do when sexual problems arise, how to air grievances, the best way to share a home and – when things grow truly problematic – how to judge whether or not we should stay or leave.

This handbook shows us how to take the necessary, careful, intelligent steps towards the contented love we deserve.

A journal to help us process our lives—from The School of Life’s line of beautiful, elegant journals

The Self-Reflection Journal is the first in a new range of guided journals from The School of Life, that uses a series of repeated questions to help us think about what we really want, what we are actually feeling and what might be holding us back from our goals. Each question has been careful chosen for its psychological insight and draws from the teachings of The School of Life, to guide us on a journey of self-discovery. 

The questions, such as 'What is still lovely?' direct our minds to areas that we tend to neglect. With 150 pages of questions, we can revisit these thoughts regularly and digest the concerns, emotions, and events that repeatedly trouble us. With time, we can lessen our anxieties, and begin to reach the calm, contended lives we deserve.

With its high quality cloth-bound cover, ribbon bookmark, and inspiring quotes from The School of Life throughout, this is a beautiful and thoughtful addition to any bookshelf.

The difference between a successful and a disappointing life often comes down to a critical ingredient that we overlook at our peril: confidence. 

This is a book with a practical purpose: to take us through exercises that help us rediscover the confidence we all already have inside us—the confidence that we have neglected out of habit, fear or meekness. It’s a faculty we are all endowed with and confidence can flourish with the right kind of practice and encouragement. 

This workbook contains over fifty exercises that flex our confident faculties and guide us to greater effectiveness in our relationships, in our working lives and in our approach to ourselves. This includes a Self-Esteem Audit to identify what we might have gone through in our early lives, asking  questions such as: Do you think you are essentially a good person? Were your parents essentially supportive or not? Do you hate or like being you? There are sections focusing on confidence in relationships, friendships, and at work.

This is a tool to unlock our latent powers – and help us become who we long, and deserve, to be. 

Pair with the Confidence Prompt Cards, designed to help you find confidence and battle against timidity.

A set of 52 question cards to spark insightful and playful encounters 

Great dates are made up of great conversations: ones where we find out more about one another, discover what makes us both tick, share some of what we like and reveal how we see the world. 

This is a collection of cards that can be used on a date to help provoke the best kinds of discussion. This pack includes 52 cards, each one posing an intriguing question or setting a challenge, designed to provoke, entertain and stimulate. As a bonus, the cards are graded according to how probing they are (Easy, Medium and Hard) so that you can playfully match the discussion with the flow of an evening.

52 cards to prompt journalling; helping us to better understand ourselves and our priorities

Journaling is one of the most effective ways to regain direction and calm: but what we should ideally be journaling about isn’t always clear.

This set of prompt cards directs us to some of the most fruitful topics for reflection and self-exploration. Use them as you journal to find inspiration and encouragement. Each of the prompts engages the mind in some of the things that matter most and helps us to better understand ourselves and our priorities.

The prompts tackle key topics around relationships, careers, emotions and ambitions. They invite us to go on new journeys within ourselves that will leave us more joyful, self-aware and serene.

Instructions

• Flip through the cards when the urge to journal strikes.
• Stop where it feels relevant; and let the prompt guide you towards new insights and awareness.
• Write as much or as little as feels relevant.
• Repeat regularly.
• Alternatively, use the cards to inspire reflections that don’t get written down. You might even use them in a discussion with a friend.

Puzzles and Ideas To Help Young Minds Grow 

Children are born philosophers – but in order to fully bring out the best of their thinking, it helps to equip them with the largest and most thought-expanding questions. This is a pack of the very sharpest, based on the biggest conundrums of philosophy, and is guaranteed to generate lively, warm and fascinating conversations among families and friends. No prior knowledge is required; all that counts is a spirit of curiosity.

The pack includes questions like: Is it ever right to lie? When might freedom not be a good thing? What’s the difference between living and being alive? How does money make you happy – and when doesn’t it? With these questions to hand, conversation will forever be profound and entertaining, and minds young and old will have a crash course in the joys and adventures of philosophy. The cards cover five categories: What Is Right and Wrong? What Is Real? What Is Society? Is There a God? What Is the Meaning of Life?

A compassionate guide to raising resilient, authentic, well-rounded children.

The Good Enough Parent is a compendium of life lessons, including how to say 'No', how to look beneath the surface of "bad" behavior to find the root of what is going on, how to encourage a child to be genuinely kind, and how to handle the moodiness of adolescence. 

Rather than striving for perfection, the book argues, the job of any parent is in fact to guide a child gently into the imperfect nature of everything. 

Encouraging, wry, and steeped in years of experience, The Good Enough Parent is an intelligent guide to raising a child who will one day look back on their childhood with just the right mixture of gratitude, humor, and love.

• COMPASSIONATE ADVICE: for raising content toddlers into resourceful teens.
• FOR BUSY PARENTS: includes digestible, accessible lessons in parenting.
• ACTIONABLE TIPS: for balancing parental instinct with the acquisition of new skills.
• EMOTIONAL CURRICULUM: with lessons in curiosity, listening, manners, and adolescence.

60 prompt cards with ideas and questions designed to help you find confidence 

We often assume that we must accept the levels of confidence we currently possess. But confidence is not a given: it is a quality we can learn about and develop in ourselves. 

These Confidence Prompt Cards keep a variety of consoling and invigorating arguments at the front of our minds, ready for the greater and smaller challenges of our lives. They remind us, for the sake of confidence, to speak to ourselves in a kind way, and to remember that the greatest thing we should fear isn't messing up, but not trying it out in the first place.

A linen-bound notebook designed to accommodate ideas, aspirations and worries in the therapeutic activity of writing down your thoughts

It’s too un-comfortable and especially difficult because we are so often busy and frazzled, hyper-connected yet a bit lonely. To really understand what we feel and think, we must turn away from distractions, common sense, and other people’s opinions. We need to develop intimacy with ourselves. Writing is ultimately the task of discovering and developing what we think. There could hardly be a more important personal goal.

A Living Eulogy. A portrait of your ideal evening. A prompt to breathe—40 activities to help us get in touch with our inner playful and introspective selves

We are used to thinking of good conversation as the glue that holds friendships together, but we shouldn’t forget the immense value of playing games, with some of the same spirit of fun and adventure that we once deployed when we were children. Here is a pack of forty activities to draw us away from static conversation. Among other things, we will build a fort together, dance in surprising ways, deliver funeral orations, practice our acting skills, and play some entertaining (but kindly) pranks. The games are an invitation to cast aside reserve and get in touch with neglected imaginative aspects of ourselves. They are a reminder that friendship doesn’t only require talking; it thrives just as much on the light-hearted but significant business of playing together.

A therapeutic and consoling workbook with exercises to soothe anxiety and create a state of calm.

Most of us long to be a little calmer: too many of our days are lost to agitation and worry, stress and discord. Yet we know that we are at our best when we can manage not to panic and take challenges in our stride.

Fortunately, a calm state of mind is not a divine gift. Even those of us starting from a more agitated position can systematically understand and lay claim to it. Too many books on this subject simply explain what it would be like to be calm. This is a workbook that takes us through the practical steps required to actually become calm. It is filled with exercises and prompts that deliver the self-understanding and self-compassion on which true serenity depends. Furthermore, the book invites us to build calming routines into our daily lives so that what we learn can stick with us and change us for the long term.

Based on years of The School of Life’s work in the area of anxiety and calm, this is a landmark workbook guaranteed to bring about the calmer state of mind we long for and deserve.

• EASY-TO-FOLLOW JOURNALING PROMPTS to explore our inner landscape and cultivate calm.
• DRAWING EXERCISES for everyone, no artistic ability required.
• A THERAPEUTIC WORKBOOK with plenty of space to track moods, set goals, and reflect.
• SOOTHING packaging and simple layout - a journal to keep close at hand.
• A TIMELY TOOLKIT to achieve calm in a frenzied, chaotic world.

A selection of unique and beautiful destinations around the world, which offer powerful new perspectives on life.

The world is full of places that inspire and bring us joy: they might be exceptionally beautiful, resonant with history, untouched by civilization or rich in memory.

This is an atlas that gathers together some of the most enchanting and reinvigorating places around the world in order to heal and captivate, including beautiful destinations in Greece, Italy, Japan, America, Chile and Australia, to name but a few. We’re taken to the tops of mountains, solitary cliffs, elegant cities and also some less expected locations: airports, hydroelectric stations and meteorite craters.

Great travelers have always known that travelling can broaden the mind; here we see how it can also heal it. A Therapeutic Atlas reminds us that the world is far broader and more inspiring than we tend to appreciate day to day. Tempting images are combined with short essays that discuss the power of particular places to help us with the difficulties of being human. We locate places that are therapeutic because they coax us out of familiar patterns of thought and liberate our minds.

This is a book that can be read when travelling, as a real-life atlas, but as importantly, when travel is difficult, it reminds us that there is no place like home and the sanctuary of our own bed.

• AN UPLIFTING GUIDE: to the therapeutic benefits of exploring the world.
• A CURATED COLLECTION OF ARTWORKS AND PHOTOGRAPHS: capturing unique destinations around the world, each accompanied by a short essay.
• FEATURED ARTISTS INCLUDE: John Singer Sargent, Richard Misrach, David Hockney, Vincent van Gogh, Albert Bierstadt and more.
• RECOMMENDED FOR READERS OF THE ART OF TRAVEL BY ALAIN DE BOTTON
• GLORIOUSLY ILLUSTRATED: designed to spark the imagination and to be both hopeful and uplifting.

A collection of simple - and surprisingly relevant - tools from great thinkers throughout history. 

Focusing on important ideas from Western and Eastern philosophy, sociology, psychotherapy, art, architecture, and literature, this collection of wisdom and insight includes everyone from well know thinkers like Sigmund Freud and Lao Tzu to more unexpected names like Coco Chanel and St Benedict. 

With original color illustrations for each featured thinker, this book presents a fascinating gallery of individuals from across the millennia who have shaped the intellectual project of The School of Life.

• A REFERENCE BOOK OF 60 GREAT THINKERS: and their most useful ideas.
• THE SCHOOL OF LIFE CANON: a gallery of individuals from across the millennia who have shaped the intellectual project of The School of Life.
• ORIGINAL COLOR ILLUSTRATIONS BY STUART PATIENCE
• THE ULTIMATE RESOURCE: for those seeking both answers and inspiration.
• PREMIUM GIFT FORMAT: shrink-wrapped with ribbon marker and belly band.

Full of colorful original photographs, The Joys and Sorrows of Parenting promises us a gentle way of staying calm around one of the most arduous yet deeply fulfilling jobs in the world. 

This playful adult board book distills 2,000 years of philosophy into 26 consoling mini essays that shed light on trials and pleasures of parenting. 

• A PLAYFUL BOARD BOOK FOR ADULTS illustrated with full color, original photographs throughout. 

• 26 DIGESTIBLE MINI ESSAYS to reassure and entertain the modern parent. 

• PRACTICAL AND PHILOSOPHICAL parenting advice that doesn't shy away from the imperfections of family life. 

• THE IDEAL GIFT for parents at all stages of their family journey.

• A PRACTICAL GUIDE TO EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE AT WORK
• EXPLORES TWENTY KEY SKILLS: such as giving feedback, responding to criticism, and communicating effectively.
• INFORMATIVE FOR INDIVIDUALS AND BUSINESSES ALIKE
• INFORMED BY RESEARCH FROM THE SCHOOL OF LIFE BUSINESS: who deliver in-house training for clients including: Facebook, The Financial Times, Google, Havas Media, Nike, and Sony Music.

The Book of Bookmarks 

Often, when we need to mark where we’ve got to in a book, we bend back the page or reach for an old receipt, but there’s a particular pleasure in having a robust and elegant bookmark to hand. 

Here are twenty bookmarks, unusually assembled into a small pull-out “book” that simultaneously offers, across its surfaces, an essay on the pleasures of reading: why we do it, what the best books do for us, and how literature might change our lives. 

This book of bookmarks prompts small, artful occasions when, at the start or end of a reading session, we can pause to consider the power of books and their vital place in our lives.

An exploration of the many reasons to remain hopeful in the face of life's disappointments and challenges.

In a world that isn’t short of darkness, there could be few more urgent priorities than to spend time rehearsing for ourselves why life – despite all its challenges – still has so much to offer us; why there are still so many reasons to be hopeful.

Here is a collection of some of the most persuasive arguments for staying on the side of optimism, creativity, kindness, calm and hope. Across a series of essays, we learn why we still have the right to feel purposeful and buoyant despite everything that is challenging: because there is still so much more to discover, because love can triumph sometimes, because we can delight in summer days and the light of dawn, because we are not alone in our suffering, because we are never far from the option of a slice of cake or a bath, because we are very small things in a mighty and beautiful universe and because we don’t require perfection for things to feel good enough.

In a tone that avoids the pitfalls of sentimentality and cynicism, the book urges us to reconnect with our more resilient selves, bidding us to recover faith in what is still possible. At points funny and always encouraging and kind, here is an ideal friend to guide us back to courage and delight.

• A TOOL TO ASSIST US IN OUR SEARCH FOR A REASON TO BE: the book is an eclectic collection of short essays on wide-ranging subjects, from an extraordinary encounter between Mick Jagger and an unfamiliar Jesuit priest to the escapism found in Iranian cinema.
• HOPEFULNESS FOR PESSIMISTS: an honest and accessible guide to navigate us through the darkness to light.
• ILLUSTRATED THROUGHOUT: with a vibrant mix of artworks, photography and illustration.
• A HIGHLY RELATABLE BOOK: that offers comfort and support in our darker moments, while guiding us towards an optimistic future.

Everyone experiences heartbreak at some point in their life. Advice can be heard to receive with a broken heart, and it tends to focus on letting time do the healing. This consoling and encouraging guide from The School of Life presents a refreshing perspective on heartbreak, arguing that a more nuanced understanding of our pain can help us along the path to healing. 

Through history, psychology, and a little philosophy, Heartbreak teaches us how our responses to abandonment are formed, what the best way to think about an ex might be, and how to envision future relationships when we are in the midst of despair. We come away feeling less alone, consoled that our suffering will have an end, and intrigued by the endless subtleties of relationships. 

• A PRACTICAL GUIDE: to understanding and overcoming heartbreak. 
• PART OF THE SCHOOL OF LIFE'S 'LOVE' SERIES: focusing on the joys and sorrows of relationships. 
• A PHILOSOPHICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL APPROACH: to life's innumerable heartbreaks. 

• EXPLORES THE LIFE-CHANGING POWER OF UNDERSTANDING OURSELVES
• A PRACTICAL TOOLKIT for self-discovery.
• INCLUDES THOUGHT-PROVOKING EXERCISES for self-analysis.
• THE SCHOOL OF LIFE'S MOST POPULAR SUBJECT the associated YouTube video "Who Am I?" has 1.5 million views.

How to live wisely and well in the twenty-first century—an introduction to the modern art of emotional intelligence.

Emotional intelligence affects every aspect of the way we live, from romantic to professional relationships, from our inner resilience to our social success. It is arguably the single most important skill for surviving the twenty-first century. But what does it really mean?

One decade ago, Alain de Botton founded The School of Life, an institute dedicated to understanding and improving our emotional intelligence. Now he presents the gathered wisdom of those ten years in a wide-ranging and innovative compendium of emotional intelligence which forms an introduction to The School of Life. Using his trademark mixture of analysis and anecdote, philosophical insight and practical wisdom, he considers how we interact with each and with ourselves, and how we can do so better.

From the reigning master of popular philosophy, The School of Life: An Emotional Education is an essential look at the skill set that defines our modern lives.

A guided questionnaire to help understand ourselves and our romantic relationships more clearly.

Most questionnaires are happy to be a bit of fun; this one sets out to be both entertaining and, more importantly, useful – offering us nothing less than a guide to the comforting and supportive relationships we long for.

With online apps taking over the dating game, it has never been more crucial to know the rules.

Through a series of pertinent questions, it reveals our distinctive style of loving, what our strengths and weaknesses are with partners and how we might secure genuine fulfillment going forward.

As we work through the questionnaire and its accompanying essays, writing the answers in a notebook, we discover the many reasons why relationships go wrong – and how they might do so far less often in the future. The book considers the role of self-hatred, the influence of childhood, the importance of vulnerability, the appeal of unavailable people and the best way to overcome patterns of self-doubt and unhealthy attachment.

Our minds are such confusing places, even the most thoughtful among us can fail to know central things about how we behave in relationships. This questionnaire will help us to understand ourselves more clearly – and so set us free to discover the love we deserve.

Art therapy for the soul. One of the most unexpectedly useful things we can do when we’re feeling glum or out of sorts is to look at pictures. The best works of art can lift our spirits, remind us of what we love and return perspective to our situation. A few moments in front of the right picture can rescue us. Art is one of the most unexpected and beautiful defenses we have against despair. 

Each of the uplifting images in this collection comes paired with a brief inspirational essay. The images range widely across time and space: from ancient to modern art, east to west, and north to south. They include photography, paintings, abstract and figurative art. Each image has been carefully chosen with a particular problem in mind: a broken heart, career challenges, relationship troubles, and more.

This is a portable museum dedicated to beauty and consolation, a unique book about art which is also about psychology and healing: a true piece of art therapy.

• A CURATED COLLECTION OF ARTWORKS from artists around the world, each accompanied by an essay.
• ARTISTS INCLUDE Edgar Degas, Cy Twombly, Gustave Caillebotte, Louise Bourgeois, Hiroshi Yoshida, Johannes Vermeer, Georgia O’Keeffe and more.
• ART AS THERAPY FOR THE SOUL this book highlights the therapeutic benefit of art. Artworks featured from galleries including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Musée d'Orsay, Paris, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, The National Gallery, London and Tate Museum, London.

We’re surrounded by books telling us how to be rich, or thin. This book is different from other self-help books—because it teaches us to be nicer. Niceness might not have the immediate allure of money or fame, but who among us wouldn’t like to be more patient, less irritable, or better listeners? 

 With a gently philosophical tone, this book gives us practical advice on how to forgive, how to reassure, and how to be generous. Being nice isn’t at all the same as being weak, or naive. In fact, niceness is one of the highest planes of human achievement—a super power, and a strength. Niceness deserves to be rediscovered and cultivated, and this book shows you how. Part of a new essential paperback series from The School of Life, covering a range of emotional lessons needed in order to lead fulfilled and happy lives.

• BEING NICER CAN BENEFIT OUR LIVES, often in unexpected ways.
• IN A TIME OF GLOBAL TURMOIL, this book encourages a focus on human kindness and empathy.
• CLASSIC BLACK & WHITE IMAGES throughout.
• PART OF THE NEW PAPERBACK SERIES 'LESSONS FOR LIFE'
• PRACTICAL AND ACCESSIBLE TIPS makes this an easy book to use in everyday life.

Navigating the onslaught of media is overwhelming, to say the least. We are so used to living in a media-saturated world that we are numb to the onslaught of news, images, and posts that batter us daily. As we scroll on our devices, many of us are anxious, sleep deprived, disheartened, and afraid. 

In this reassuring  guide we learn to understand and combat what media does to our minds. It looks at the many peculiarities of modern media: its obsession with scandal, its emphasis on novelty, its capacity to fuel envy and self-hatred, its ever shorter attention span, its obsession with fame, and its proliferation across platforms and mediums.

The goal of the book is to free readers from the media’s tentacles in order to reach a calmer, more generous, and imaginative state of mind. Modern media is, too often, an illness; this is a cure.

• MEDIA AND MENTAL HEALTH: considers the link between media and mental illness and looks at how we can reduce our media intake to relieve anxiety and stress. 
• CRITICAL EYE: helps us to think more critically about the media and the messages we are receiving through the news and online.
• “USEFUL PESSIMISM”: and other chapters, including “This is not the whole world,” “Think like a tragedian”, and “Know who you are.”

52 exercises designed to train our brains to find their bearings and generate their very best efforts

Motivation is a tool for increasing our effectiveness. Our minds are not machines—we’re all prone to distractions, indecision and cognitive biases – but these can also be worked around and overcome. Each exercise in this handy set prompts us to engage in activities and thought experiments that help us surmount mental blocks, and formulate strategies for solving problems and achieving our goals. This collection of psychological solutions is an invaluable resource for unlocking our true potential.

A set of cards that display beautiful photographs of life’s small pleasures. 

Find beauty in overlooked things! This set of cards gives us gentle reminders for those small pleasures in life which we sometimes overlook—with images on the reverse.

A lot of what makes life worth living isn’t to do with great, heroic or costly things, but with modest pleasures that are all around us, largely unnoticed, available for almost nothing. It might be a beautiful sky, the smell of freshly cut grass, or a friend who understands how we feel. With beautiful photography and a few well-chosen words, this pack of cards draws us back to an appreciation of the overlooked ordinary, gently prompting us to remember that life is more precious and richer than we generally allow.

"The School of Life: On Self-Hatred may be the most essential of The School of Life’s essential philosophy handbooks: it reminds us, yet again, that we are not alone, that much more connects us than divides us and that self-acceptance is one of the most important keys to peace of mind." - Emma Thompson, DBE British actress and screenwriter

A guide to emotional healing and living a more self-accepting life.

Behind many of our problems lies an often ignored factor: we don’t like ourselves very much. We are sufferers of self-hatred. We tell ourselves the meanest things. It’s because of self-hatred that we tend to neglect our potential at work and get entangled in unfulfilling relationships, that we lack confidence in our social lives and suffer from anxiety, despair and imposter syndrome.

This is a book that, with immense compassion and fellow feeling, investigates the phenomenon of self-hatred while giving pragmatic advice on how to overcome it. It asks where the feeling comes from, what it makes us do and how we might become kinder and more compassionate towards ourselves.

We have probably spent far too much of our lives disliking ourselves and attacking everything we say, do or feel, while not even realizing what we’re up to. It’s time to overcome our masochism and move towards a more self-forgiving and accepting stance. The School of Life: On Self Hatred is a guide to the more compassionate and gentle relationship we should have had with ourselves from the start, and can all achieve now.

• IDENTIFIES THE ORIGINS AND CONSEQUENCES OF SELF-HATRED: and provides advice for living a more self-accepting life.
• ENCOURAGES US TO DEVELOP ASSERTIVENESS AGAINST SELF-LOATHING: and gives us the tools to challenge our inner critic and deal with imposter syndrome.
• ACCESSIBLE AND PRAGMATIC: with a compassionate and realistic tone, outlining the importance of self-care.
• PART OF THE SCHOOL OF LIFE'S SERIES OF GIFTABLE ESSAYS: other titles include: Why You Will Marry the Wrong Person, On Confidence, How to Find Love and Self-Knowledge.

A hopeful guide to living well in the 21st century.

The modern world has brought us a range of extraordinary benefits and joys, including technology, medicine, and transportation. But with these advances, it seems, we've also seen an increase in greed, despair, and agitation. 

How to Survive the Modern World is the ultimate guide to navigating our unusual times. The book tackles our relationship to the news, our identities, our careers, our relationship to the natural world, our admiration for science and technology, our belief in individualism and secularism - and our suspicion of quiet and solitude. 

This book helps us form a calmer, more authentic, more resilient, and more light-hearted relationship to the complexities of our age. If modern times can feel like a disease, this book is both the diagnosis and the soothing, hope-filled cure.

• IDENTIFIES THE SOURCE OF SHARED ANXIETY helps us identify the sources of our sorrows in the modern world.
• PRACTICAL ADVICE on dealing with the challenges presented by capitalism, advertising and the media.
• CHAPTERS INCLUDE Media, Materialism, Family, Love, Work, Sex, Science & Religion, Democracy and Nature.
• BEAUTIFULLY PRODUCED premium gift format.

From the team that created Big Ideas For Curious Minds, an introduction to the history of science and its impact on the world today

Big Ideas from Science introduces children to some of the most influential scientists throughout history, and the amazing scientific breakthroughs that have changed the way we live – from the discovery of bronze to the invention of the microscope. With engaging facts and playful illustrations, children are encouraged to follow their innate curiosity, to look at the world in different ways and to try and make sense of it. 

The book shows us how science not only helps us invent incredible new technology, understand the structure of atoms or reach the moon, but can also help us with some of the most important questions in our lives: how can I become a wiser person, a better friend and a kinder, more compassionate human?

50 heartfelt photographs and interviews, reflecting on the universal experience of loneliness.

It’s easy to feel that we are alone in feeling alone. Not only do we suffer, but we also destroy our self-confidence with repeated convictions that we are the only ones who are so confused and at sea, the only ones without a partner and who will be alone (again) on Saturday night.

Through fifty touching interviews and captivating portraits by the talented photographer Julia Hawkins, this transformative book uncovers the ways that loneliness touches so many of us. We hear from a diverse array of individuals whose lives have been shaped by isolation – those who feel invisible, misunderstood and alienated, as well as those who have found unexpected paths to understanding and connection.

We come to understand that we are not unique in our solitude, and that being alone is a natural part of the human experience - and so we have every reason to hold out a hand to our similarly complicated, kind and lonely neighbours. 

A book of psychological tests, questions, and exercises, and how they can help you get to know yourself better

We spend our lives inside ourselves and yet understanding our inner world remains one of our most complex challenges. This enlightening and practical book offers a collection of transformative psychological tests designed to illuminate the hidden dimensions of our psyches.

Through a curated selection of 50 psychological exercises, you’ll embark on an intimate journey of self-discovery. These tests invite you to look beneath the surface of your conscious thoughts, uncovering the subtle narratives that shape your emotions, relationships and sense of self.

Each test is an invitation to explore your unspoken fears, your deepest desires and the unconscious patterns that drive your behaviours, providing unprecedented insight into your inner workings.

A card set to help you feel grounded and more present, by being mindful of the world around us

Many of us struggle to feel ‘present’ – that is, fully in tune with our surroundings. We remain locked inside our own heads, so distracted by stress and anxiety that we fail to take notice of – and pleasure in – the world outside.

What we need are some lessons in the forgotten art of noticing. This card set contains a collection of small yet remarkable things to watch out for as we go about our day, with exercises  for how to make the most of their wisdom - such as making a note of lost things, or actively listening to birdsong. It encourages us to seek beauty in the everyday things we might otherwise overlook, reminding us how, in even the most mundane of settings, there is much to interest, excite, distract and delight us.

By studying these cards and following their suggestions, we stand to rediscover presence and serenity.

The second book in The School of Life's 'Secrets' series, offering lessons on the emotional skills necessary to build and maintain friendships 

Through The School of Life's unique approach to psychology, philosophy and cultural history, The Secrets of Successful Friendships offers a thoughtful exploration of why friendship is both more complex and more rewarding than we typically imagine, and offers strategic for creating strong bonds with others. It examines why we get lonely, what holds us back from deeper connections, and how we might develop the emotional intelligence needed for lasting bonds. 

With characteristic wisdom and warmth, the book explores different varieties of friendship, from casual acquaintances to profound lifelong connections, while offering practical insights into overcoming common obstacles like shyness, envy and fear of vulnerability. 

By explaining friendship's true purpose, the book gives us a chance to build new relationships of genuine depth and meaning.

A guide to understanding our own trauma and finding ways to recover from it

All of us have – to a greater or lesser extent – suffered from traumas in our lives. The less we address these traumas, the more they have a habit of manifesting as difficulties in the form of broken relationships, anxieties, depression, or even physical symptoms like insomnia and digestive issues.

'From Trauma to Healing' is a practical guide to breaking free of these traumas and finding hope for the future. In four chapters, Causes of Trauma, Symptoms of Trauma, Relocating Trauma, and Processing Trauma, we learn what trauma is, how it can affect us for decades, and how we can liberate ourselves from it in a healthy way. Exercises and question prompts throughout the book, such as word association tests and 'interviewing' the body, demonstrate strategies to recognise trauma and work through them towards healing. 

Deeply practical and packed with ideas, this is a humane and wise guide to recovering from the past, and creating the happier future we deserve.

"Broadens horizons and provokes critical thought about an essential issue." - Kirkus Reviews

52 cards to complete the story in our minds

Here is a set of cards that offer us an entertaining and unique way to learn about what’s really going on in our minds.

Each card presents the beginnings of a story and invites us to imagine the rest. What might happen to the little boy and girl lost in the forest, or the couple on the day after their wedding? The prompts range from whimsical openings inspired by classic tales, to more grounded, psychologically challenging scenarios.

How we complete these stories reveals a remarkable amount about our values, fears, concerns and hopes. It is up to us whether we answer playfully or therapeutically, as long as it is honestly. Play the game in company for entertainment and confession; play it alone to mine the contents of your deep self.

“This is a book for sharing. The grown-up who reads this book with you is saying that they really do want to listen and understand. They’re saying that it’s good to take time to talk about a feeling even if it seems very complicated…”

From The School of Life— a card set for working out what you really want

From The School of Life comes an ingenious tool – based the psychological research of Hermann Ebbinghaus – for working out what you really think and want. 

This set is made up of 52 cards, each of which features a different unfinished sentence (for example, “Men are …” “I want …” or “What I really need is …”). Complete them as fast as possible, without censoring whatever comes into your mind, to discover what you really feel, fear, want, regret, or are angry about. The broad variety of topics and open-ended nature of the prompts allows honest insights to be drawn about a range of areas of our lives, such as friendships, relationships, work, and wants. 

With the potential to be as serious as you make them, they are ideal as conversation starters for group discussion, alone for therapeutic insight, or simply as a fun mode of self-discovery.

Use these cards repeatedly to nurture a newfound sense of self-understanding and clarity.

The School of Life’s thought-provoking and practical guide to one of the greatest questions we will ever face – now in paperback

To wonder too openly or intensely about the meaning of life can seem a peculiar, ill-fated and faintly ridiculous pastime. It can seem like a topic on which ordinary mortals cannot make much progress. In truth, it is for all of us to wonder about, define and work towards a more meaningful existence.

This book considers a range of options for where the meaning of life is to be found, including love, family, friendship, work, self-knowledge and nature. We learn why certain things feel meaningful while others don’t, and consider how we might introduce more meaning into our activities.

What follows is a hugely thought-provoking as well as practical guide to one of the greatest questions we will ever face.

The second in a line of journals from The School of Life– a tool for checking in

This beautifully produced and high quality journal invites us to regularly check in on ourselves – what we want, where we want to change, where we need to go – in order to maximize our chances of leading a fulfilled and contented life.

With well-focused questions repeated throughout, interspersed with quotes on growth from The School of Life, this journal prompts us to clarify our goals, assess our options and plot a route to a flourishing future. By regularly answering the repeated questions, such as 'In five years, I would be pleased if...' , we can clearly track our achievements and assess where we still have room to grow.

This is a tool for a newfound feeling of lightness, creativity and purpose.

An essential guide to modern etiquette—now in paperback 

Life is full of awkward social situations; we forget someone's name while making introductions, we're stuck on the elevator with our boss, we run into our ex on a first date. While these dilemmas might feel trivial, they tap into some of the deepest themes of our social existence: how to pursue our own agenda while honoring the happiness and needs of others? How to go beyond the surface level when relating to another person? 

Featuring twenty case studies from our modern world, this book puts good manners back at the center of our lives. Far from being old fashioned or stuffy, The School of Life argues, etiquette provides a framework through which to create a kinder and more considerate world. 

• THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO ETIQUETTE IN THE 21ST CENTURY 
• NAVIGATING OUR MOST AWKWARD SOCIAL SITUATIONS this practical and relevant guide offers tips and scripts. 
• TWENTY CASE STUDIES AND ACTIONABLE ADVICE for dealing with common social dilemmas. 
• HOW TO WIN PEOPLE OVER, how to approach strangers at a party, and how to write an effective thank you note - the chapters in this book address common perplexing social situations head on. 
• BLACK AND WHITE PHOTOGRAPHY THROUGHOUT

The School of Life’s approach to self-awareness - in a pocket format.

In the second of a series of pocket books, The School of Life has distilled its most essential ideas on self-awareness in order to produce a bitesize manual that is both useful and entertaining. 

Understanding ourselves is the key to unlocking our true potential. Here is a collection of The School of Life’s most penetrating insights into the puzzles of self-awareness. By exploring key themes within the topic of self-knowledge, such as Emotional Intelligence, Anxiety, Normality, Pessimism and Self-sabotage, this book teaches us how to look into ourselves, how to make sense of our past, and how to overcome anxiety and confusion. 

In a highly accessible form, The School of Life introduces us to a person we’ve been in flight from for too long and will benefit hugely from getting to know: our deep selves.

Pair with the Know Yourself Prompt Cards, designed to help lead you through the important task of knowing yourself a little better in life.

The School of Life’s approach to love - in a pocket format 

In the first of a series of pocket books, The School of Life has distilled its most essential ideas on love in order to produce a bitesize manual that is both useful and entertaining. 

We learn – among other things – how to pick partners more reliably, how to avoid conflict and how to know whether a relationship is really for us. By exploring key themes within the topic of relationships, such as Anxious Attachment, Attachment theory, Long-term love, Romantic disappointment, Secrets in love and Crushes, this book shows us how satisfied love life is not a chance event but something that we can all plot for and achieve. 

Love is a skill, not an emotion; this is a guide to how we might master it.

Pair with the Connect Cards and The Compatibility Game, to help foster connection and closeness.

From The School of Life— a roadmap for the emotionally mature adult 

Most of us want to be more emotionally mature and better able to face up to life’s challenges with poise, confidence, kindness and good-natured intelligence. We want to be grown-ups! 

With gentleness and insight, How Emotionally Mature Are You?  helps us to zero in on the key markers of psychological adulthood. It prompts us to look at how we respond to rejection, frustration, anxiety, ambiguity and hope, by asking questions such as: How much do we like ourselves? Do we worry too much about the opinions of other people? What might be the best way to become a more interesting person? 

This questionnaire considers the childhood, the role of self-love and the perils of perfectionism – as well as the best ways to achieve self-belief and overcome impostor syndrome. In a series of accompanying essays, we are given material to reflect on – and shown how to reach the emotional age we aspire to be.

Pair with the Emotional Barometer to reach a clearer understanding of our inner emotional weather.

A small “museum”—in book form— of calm 

A psychological guidebook that can help to quieten our worries and bring on a new mood of serenity and ease. 

Knowing how to be calm is one of life’s greatest skills. It doesn’t matter how well our own life is going; if our mind is frantic, happiness will always be just out of reach. 

The third title in the '40 Images' series, Calm in 40 Images is a comprehensive guide to the art of calm. Featuring the work of photographers and artists including Hiroshi Sugimoto, Gustav Klimt, Gwen John, Johannes Vermeer and Edward Hopper, alongside essays to invite contemplation, it takes us systematically through the many things that unsettle us and arrives at a range of solutions to ease our spirits. Gustav Klimt’s Pear Tree (1903) reminds us that we do not need a life of fame or melodramatic relationships, we should instead make our peace with so-called ordinariness. Mark Salamon’s photograph, The Rays (2020), accompanies a guided anxiety-reducing exercise that we can partake in when the noise of the day has subsided. 

We are invited not just to understand calm, but to appreciate it with our eyes and, more crucially, discover it with all of our senses. 

Companion book to Confidence in 40 Images and Self-Knowledge in 40 Images. Pair with the Stoicism Cards for insights into building resilience and calm.

Following on from the bestselling How To Overcome Your Childhood, Getting Over Your Parents is a practical guide on how to navigate the complex legacies left to us by our parents, and how to parent ourselves. By exploring different types of parents, such as “The Preoccupied Parent”, “The Overprotective Parent”’ and “The Controlling Parent”, it offers a vocabulary to understand some of the stranger and more difficult things that parents sometimes do to their children, as well as giving advice on how to move forward from our puzzles or confusions. The emphasis is never on blame, always on understanding. 

Offering constructive solutions for dealing with the symptoms of a difficult childhood, this book helps us to explore the past so that we can avoid the mistakes our parents made, and secure for ourselves the more creative, calm and loving future we deserve.

A new series of Therapeutic Tales from the School of Life—now in paperback. 

Anna is a kind and thoughtful person, in her mid-twenties. But lately, life has been hard. Her job is extremely stressful, her relationship is lacking balance and support, she has a difficult and complicated family history. It’s not hard to see a bit of ourselves in her. 

In a style that’s brief and poignant, we follow Anna as she slowly unpacks the roots of her own self-suspicion and discovers something we all deserve but have so often been denied: a voice of our own. 

With beautiful documentary photography on each page, this is fiction as therapy—and it seeks to offer the reader consolation, recognition and therapeutic insight.

A Tool to Explain Our Moods

It can be hard to tell other people how we really feel—sometimes it’s hard for us to even identify our own moods.

This is a tool to help us overcome our vagueness: cards that offer definitions of twenty moods that we can all recognize but that can be hard to pin down and explain. Here are descriptions of - among many other things - the sense of feeling weepy, nostalgic, anxious, and dreamy. These cards help us reach a clearer understanding of our inner emotional weather. They can also be passed on to friends and colleagues (or simply displayed on our desk) so that the world can better know what's going on inside us, without our needing to explain too much.

Also includes a fun, spinnable (and colorful) mood barometer.

A journal that seeks to honour the act of therapeutic writing containing journalling prompts to find inspiration and encouragement

Writing is a simple and effective way to work through what we really want, what’s at stake– and where we might go next. It’s a great way to garner self-awareness and get creativity flowing.

This is a journal that honors the act of writing as a road to calm, joy and self-knowledge. Use it on its own or alongside our Journal Prompt Cards as a place to explore and capture what might otherwise float aimlessly in the mind; make this a repository of all that you feel, remember, think – and are.

A journal that seeks to honour the act of therapeutic writing containing journalling prompts to find inspiration and encouragement

Writing is a simple and effective way to work through what we really want, what’s at stake– and where we might go next. It’s a great way to garner self-awareness and get creativity flowing.

This is a journal that honors the act of writing as a road to calm, joy and self-knowledge. Use it on its own or alongside our Journal Prompt Cards as a place to explore and capture what might otherwise float aimlessly in the mind; make this a repository of all that you feel, remember, think – and are.

Re-Discover Wonder and Excitement with these fun adventure cards

Adulting is hard! One of our deepest urges is for life to be more adventurous: a little more excitement, playfulness, interest and passion. Unfortunately, many adventures, especially the “big” kinds, are too expensive, or they threaten to turn everything upside down. What we need, then, is access to smaller, more pocket-sized adventures. 

We call these “Everyday Adventures” – from something tiny like eating an unfamiliar fruit to rereading your favorite book, to asking a parent what they were like as a teenager. This is a suggestion box to spark the imagination, revive the spirit and motivate us towards the slightly more adventurous lives we long for. 

52 cards with questions and exercises for deeper and more meaningful conversations with friends

Meeting up with our friends is one of life’s great pleasures. We look forward to a chance to connect, share news and reaffirm our affection and sense of fun. But having a great time together, even with people we know well, is not necessarily as simple as it sounds. We don’t always manage to hit the right sort of topics of conversation and get to say the truly important things.

52 conversation cards to help break the log-jam between parents and their teenager

Not many teenagers want to talk to their parents that much. Their reasons are numerous and often sensible; yet for parents, the silence can feel painful and mysterious. What happened to their once chatty little ones? What might teenagers truly want to tell their parents, if only there was the right opportunity? And what might parents want to tell their children in turn, if it didn’t generate an immediate eye-roll? This is a pack of cards that can help the conversation and levity between generations with humor and curiosity.

A game for two people to assess their compatibility—with charm and wit

The Compatibility Game is designed to help two people in a relationship (romantic or otherwise) assess their level of compatibility. It helps to identify areas of alignment and divergence in their values, ambitions, goals or beliefs and, at the same time, discuss the significance of all these things. Crucially, the game does not suggest that incompatibilities cannot be overcome: the basis of successful relationships is not compatibility but compromise!

A 15th anniversary collection of The School of Life’s most popular and essential essays on self-knowledge, relationships, work and culture.

The School of Life is an organization with a mission at its heart: to help foster calm, self-understanding and greater emotional maturity. 

For the last 15 years, we have produced landmark essays on important life topics, now gathered together for the first time.

Among the essays collected here, conveniently, in one volume:

• On Confidence: a guide to throwing off inhibition in the name of a more free and creative life
• Self-Knowledge: a method for knowing ourselves better in order to make optimal choices in love and work
• Why You Will Marry the Wrong Person: a hopeful and wry survey of the trials and joys of marriage

This beautiful edition of The School of Life’s best advice is a perfect companion to carry around or keep on a bedside table— a concise compendium of some of the wisest things we’ll ever need to know.

What our readers have been saying about the individual essays

On Confidence

"Brief but insightful! Will be back for more School of Life reads. Works really well on Audible"

"Brilliant! Thought provoking. Kept concise enough to really focus on the subject and give you time to think about the subject in terms of yourself."

Self-Knowledge

"It's such a simple and small book but with a powerful message! I really needed it and I'm grateful I got to read this book and work on the exercises. The exercises are definitely a plus and they're very well thought-through!"

Just perfect. Must-read for everyone who considers at least dating, not to mention serious commitment. Beautifully exposed all the myths and concepts of love, sex and relationships. While this is very entertaining and funny, the topics are very serious and make me think and change my attitude... a lot."

Why You Will Marry The Wrong Person

"Excellent little book for perspective on a considerably important subject. If you plan on marrying, take a day and read this magnificent little title."

Essays from this series available as audiobooks:

Self-Knowledge

On Confidence

• A COMPACT AND PHILOSOPHICAL GUIDE TO THE ART OF TRAVELING
• 20 ESSAYS TO INSPIRE WANDERLUST
• INCLUDES BLANK PAGES FOR NOTES and a built in pocket for saving mementos.
• FULL COLOR ILLUSTRATIONS THROUGHOUT

The School of Life believes that literature has the power to transform lives. Each title in their Box Set collection contains essential classic and modern texts on a given theme. They're designed to be lifetime companions and guides. 

The Unquiet Grave by Cyril Connolly - A highly personal journal written by Cyril Connolly during the devastation of WWII, filled with reflective passages that deal with aging, the break-up of a long-term relationship, and the horrors of the war around him. 

Straw Dogs by John Gray - A radical work of philosophy that sets out to challenge our assumptions about what it means to be human. From Plato to Christianity, from the Enlightenment to Nietzsche and Marx, the Western tradition has been based on arrogant and erroneous beliefs about human beings and their place in the world. 

Collected Maxims by La Rochefoucauld - Deceptively brief and easy to read, La Rochefoucauld's shrewd, unflattering analyses of human behavior have influenced writers, thinkers, and public figures as various as Voltaire, Proust, de Gaulle, Nietzsche, and Conan Doyle. 

Meditations by Marcus Aurelius - These meditations offer a remarkable series of challenging spiritual reflections and exercises developed as the emperor struggled to understand himself and make sense of the universe. While the Meditations were composed to provide personal consolation and encouragement, Marcus Aurelius also created one of the greatest of all works of philosophy: a timeless collection that has been consulted and admired throughout the centuries. 

• COLLECTABLE BOXED SET OF HARDBACK EDITIONS
• INCLUDES FOUR CLASSIC MODERN TEXTS: The Unquiet Grave by Cyril Connolly, Straw Dogs by John Gray, Collected Maxims by La Rochefoucauld and Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. 
• DESIGNED TO BE LIFETIME COMPANIONS

An engaging, inclusive history of the world for children, where feelings, curiosity, and facts blend together 

Big Ideas from History is the story of what has happened through time - in a voice that speaks directly to a child's growing mind, helping them make vast connections between time and place, and their own place within history. 

What might the dinosaurs or the ancient Egyptians, the Aztec warriors or the Enlightenment thinkers of the 18th century tell us that could be interesting and useful to hear now? This book is a big history of the world, from the beginnings of the universe to now, which places the reader at its center. It encourages children to think about how they experience the world and offers a helpful perspective by placing their thoughts and feelings in the context of our history and evolution. 

Big Ideas From History asks the reader to imagine a world they would like to live in. What might they learn from self-knowledge? How can they grow, develop and create their own place in history? Charming, thoughtful, and written with warmth and intelligence, this is the perfect gift for the curious child.

• BIG IDEAS FROM HISTORY: Spanning the ages in an easy-to-follow way, this latest edition to the "Big Ideas" series covers Prehistory, Ancient History, The Middle Ages, Industrialization, The Modern World and The Future. 
• KIDS WILL LOVE ENGAGING WITH THIS BOOK: As one example, readers young and old alike can ponder items like "What the ideal school would be like" or "How to teach people to be great at telling jokes" in the section titled "Big Questions We Don't Know the Answer For (Yet)". 
• WRITTEN FOR KIDS: Makes history fascinating and relevant to children and renders complicated material accessible to a younger audience without condescension. 
• CONVERSATION WILL FLOW BETWEEN CHILDREN AND THEIR GROWN-UPS: An engaging way to open up conversations between adults and children about thoughts and feelings. 
• BEAUTIFUL ILLUSTRATIONS BY ANNA DOHERTY: We see two characters traversing the history of the world, bringing it vibrantly to life. 
• FOLLOW UP TO THE BEST-SELLING BIG IDEAS FOR CURIOUS MINDS

Since around 1750, we have been living in the era of Romanticism, which has shaped the way we approach love, marriage, and sex. When it comes to love, this book argues, Romanticism has been a disaster. Full of real-life examples, lively humor, and cultural anecdotes, Relationships teaches us: 

• That love and sex may not always go together (and that’s OK)
• That discussing money early on, in a serious way, is not a betrayal of love That acknowledging respective flaws can be a couple’s superpower
• That we will never find everything we need in another person
• That spending two hours discussing whether bathroom towels should be hung up or can be left on the floor has its own dignity

With wisdom, wit, and compassion, this innovative guide paves the way to a new, brighter future for love. Part of a new essential paperback series from The School of Life, covering a range of emotional lessons needed in order to lead fulfilled and happy lives.

• DOWN WITH ROMANTICISM! this book teaches you how to find love, and keep it—without rosy-colored glasses. 
• LEARN THE SKILL OF LOVE—AND LIVING WITH YOUR PARTNER’S FLAWS a refreshing, skills-based take on how to approach relationships, and be realistic about long term partnership. 
• PRACTICAL RELATIONSHIP ADVICE like why to talk about money early on, and how to find dignity in the dreary domestic details of life.
• CLASSIC BLACK & WHITE IMAGES throughout.
• PART OF THE NEW PAPERBACK SERIES 'LESSONS FOR LIFE'

A box of wise emergency advice for 20 key psychological situations, including Friendship, Love, Sex, Work and Self

"I resent my parents so much"

"I will never find the right partner"

"I’m in the wrong job"

"I don’t know how to make friends…"

We are all plagued by moments of worry and distress. When we injure ourselves, we reach for a first aid kit. But when we are hurt or lost emotionally, what can we reach for? Introducing an emotional first aid solution. This deluxe box set contains what’s most urgently needed to contain a situation - until calm returns or more substantial help can be called for. 

This is a counterpart to that medical first aid kit: an emotional kit that provides a set of useful salves to some of life’s most challenging psychological situations. Hopefully we won’t face them very often (if at all), but knowing how we might respond can lend us an important degree of confidence and resilience. This kit is an artful collection of some of what the wisest and kindest, most experienced and most thoughtful people might say to us if they were beside us in a crisis.

• THE SCHOOL OF LIFE'S GUIDE TO NAVIGATING ANXIETY
• TRAUMA, RELATIONSHIPS, OVERTHINKING, SELF-LOATHING: this book explore 19 varieties of anxiety, and the tone is like a pep talk from a trusted friend.
• INCLUDES PRACTICAL SELF-REFLECTION EXERCISES: designed to help calm and unburden the mind.
• ILLUSTRATED WITH FULL COLOR IMAGES THROUGHOUT

Eureka Honors Award Winner

“This is a book for sharing. The grown-up who reads this book with you is saying that they really do want to listen and understand. They’re saying that it’s good to take time to talk about a feeling even if it seems very complicated…”

In the first of a series of children's books aimed at better understanding and articulating emotions, comes What Are Your Feeling? 

Taking a deep dive into 20 different feelings from sensitive to proud, quiet to mischievous, this book helps the child identify their emotions in ways that are healthy and easy to understand. 

With vivid  illustrations that bring each feeling to life by the award-winning Daniel Gray Barnett, this book is a wonderful tool for self awareness, social-emotional learning, and sharing how we feel.

52 cards for greater serenity, ease and clarity

In an overcomplicated world, what many of us crave deep down is greater simplicity: less clutter, fewer commitments, less static and chaos. This ingenious set of cards asks us a range of deceptively simple questions – which we can answer by ourselves or with friends – that focus our minds on what really counts. They give us confidence to assess what we might give up on and where our true focus should lie. They ask us to look at our careers, our relationships, our family lives, and our ambitions more broadly. In a few easy steps, these cards help us prioritize and sift – and, with gentle humor, guide us to the simpler lives we long for and deserve.

52 exercises to foster diplomacy, empathy and effective communication within teams

Let’s get this party started!

Is this truism true?

And relax!

Collaboration is a tool for helping people work together better: 52 exercises designed to build empathy, insight and trust between colleagues. Intended to transform the atmosphere in teams, it prompts people to participate in a range of tasks and thinking exercises that strengthen their ability to cooperate and lend them insight into how others’ minds work. In a playful and often entertaining way, this toolkit aims to achieve something critical: the creation of a team that can work seamlessly and imaginatively together.

Often, the most difficult aspect of work has nothing to do with deadlines, promotions, or competition. It has to do with the immense and beautiful challenges of dealing, on a daily basis, with our colleagues.

The people we work with can encourage, support, and energize us, However, working successfully around others, whether virtually or in person, is neither intuitive nor simple. It requires us to communicate effectively, to understand our own blind spots and biases, and to empathize with another person's perspective. 

The School of Life has been working with organizations since its foundation, equipping employees with the emotional intelligence required to succeed. This book collects their learning into a series of lessons on workplace psychology. The result is an essential guide to harmonious, happier, and more profitable organizations.

• A PRACTICAL GUIDE: to working successfully with our colleagues.
• FULL OF THOUGHTFUL EXERCISES AND ADVICE: for working collaboratively.
• EXPLORES CHALLENGING WORKPLACE BEHAVIOR: such as defensiveness, over-optimism, and immaturity.
• THOROUGHLY RESEARCHED AND CLIENT-DRIVEN: informed by practical experience and research from The School of Life for Business who deliver in-house training for clients including: Facebook, The Financial Times, Google, Havas Media, Nike, and Sony Music.
• AN INFORMATIVE GUIDE: for individuals and businesses alike.

A practical guide to finding fulfilling work - by understanding yourself.

The idea that work might be fulfilling rather than just necessary is a recent invention. These days, in prosperous areas of the world, we don't only expect to get paid, we also expect to find meaning and satisfaction. It's a big ask and explains why so many people have an identity crisis in their work lives.

The School of Life: A Job To Love is designed to help us better understand ourselves in order to find a job that is right for us. It explores the myths, traps and confusions that get in our way, and shows us how to develop new, effective attitudes and habits.

With compassion and practicality, this book guides us to discover our true talents and to make sense of our confusion, desires, and aspirations - before it is too late.

• FIND A CAREER YOU LOVE: a guide to finding fulfilling work through self-exploration.
• PRACTICAL EXAMPLES AND EXERCISES: to inspire fresh thinking about our jobs and ourselves.
• BEAUTIFULLY PRODUCED: with classic black and white illustrations.
• PART OF THE NEW PAPERBACK SERIES 'LESSONS FOR LIFE'

• AN ESSENTIAL CHILDREN'S GUIDEBOOK TO EMOTIONAL WELLBEING
• CHAPTERS INCLUDE BULLYING, ANXIETY, AND FEELING MISUNDERSTOOD
• ILLUSTRATIONS BY LIZZY STEWART: the award-winning illustrator of There's a Tiger in the Garden.
• THOUGHT PROVOKING PROMPTS: to encourage conversation between adults and kids about emotional wellbeing.
• ACCESSIBLE PRESENTATION OF COMPLEX TOPICS
• IDEAL FOR AGES 9 AND UP

A collection of the essential emotional lessons we need in order to thrive.

We probably went to school for what felt like a very long time. We probably took care with our homework. Along the way we surely learnt intriguing things about equations, the erosion of glaciers, the history of the Founding Fathers, and the tenses of foreign languages.

But why, despite all the lessons we sat through, were we never taught the really important things that dominate and trouble our lives: who to start a relationship with, how to trust people, how to understand one’s psyche, how to move on from sorrow or betrayal, and how to cope with anxiety and shame?

The School of Life is an organization dedicated to teaching a range of emotional lessons that we need in order to lead fulfilled and happy lives – and that schools routinely forget to teach us. This book is a collection of our most essential lessons, delivered with directness and humanity, covering topics from love to career, childhood trauma to loneliness. 

To read this book is to be invited to lead kinder, richer, and more authentic lives – and to complete an education we began but still badly need to finish. This is homework to help us make the most of the rest of our lives.

• EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE essential skills and lessons to help you thrive at work, at home, and in relationships.
• GIFT beautifully packaged in premium gift format.
• A HELPFUL GUIDE to what really matters, written with directness and humanity.
• A PRIMER ON LIVING WELL philosophical concepts simplified and applied to modern life.

A book to offer clarity and guidance when facing the difficult decision of whether your relationship has a future.

Whether we should stay in or leave a relationship is one of the most consequential and painful decisions we are ever likely to confront.

What makes the issue so hard is that there are no fixed rules for judgement. How can we tell whether a relationship is 'good enough' or plain wrong? How do we draw the line between justified longing and naivety? Does someone 'better' actually exist? Should the feelings of children be counted (and what might they be in the long term)? Could one's partner change, perhaps with therapy, or should one assume that who they are now is who they will always be?

All these questions typically haunt our minds as we weigh up whether to stay or go. With no axe to grind or ideology to promote, Stay or Leave walks us gently through our options, opening our minds to perspectives we might not have considered.

This book aims to take the reader towards a time, presently hard to imagine, when the choice will no longer feel so agonizing. Using its lessons, we can understand ourselves deeply, consider our options, minimize our regrets and find the way ahead.

• REFRESHINGLY PRAGMATIC relationship advice for couples of all kinds.
• ROMANTIC REALISM a common sense way to look at your relationship.
• RELATIONSHIP TOOLKIT for working through your fears and anxieties.
• THERAPIST-RESEARCHED draws from The School of Life’s Therapy department and their experience providing couples therapy.

An essential guide to encourage children to explore, enjoy and benefit from the natural world around them.

** "This thought-provoking book should provide many opportunities to discuss and learn from the natural world. Highly recommend for classrooms and libraries." – School Library Journal Starred Reviews **

Children are used to hearing about how important it is to protect nature, but they may not fully understand how the natural world can positively impact their emotional wellbeing. With that in mind, this book looks to enhance this time spent outside and show children how nature can be fun, uplifting, consoling, and even offer companionship.

This is a book about how nature can touch us all and help us with our lives (especially when we might be feeling bored, sad, or lonely). Children learn about the ways in which they can be comforted, inspired, and uplifted by examples of nature such as:

– a flowing river
– a cow in a field
– clouds in the sky
– rabbits in their burrows
– stars at night
– or a cuddle with a favorite puppy.

This is an inspirational book, not just educating children about the natural world, but teaching them to love and connect with it. Beautiful illustrations and a tone that is encouraging, warm and accessible makes it easy for children, and their favorite adults, to relate to.

• ILLUSTRATIONS BY TYLA MASON bring animals and plants to life to get children excited about connecting with nature.
• EDUCATIONAL AND FUN encourages children to discover what’s amazing and interesting about nature.
• EXPANDS EMOTIONAL LITERACY by helping kids explore how their environment makes them feel.
• AGES 8 AND UP with fun facts and engaging activities.