The Bookseller.com

8th January 2009

Sophie Howarth is director of The School of Life.

A chemist for the mind

18.09.08

The School of Life is a place to explore how culture can help us think through everyday concerns. Engaging with the history of ideas may not offer the quickest form of fix, but it offers a means of asking important and enduring questions about the art of living. We select our small but ever changing stock from philosophy, fiction, poetry and art books, rather than from the genre usually known as 'self-help'.

We commend those brave academics like Theodore Zeldin, Laurie Maguire and Robert MacFarlane who are willing to present their research in an accessible form. And public intellectuals such as Alain de Botton and Geoff Dyer who find academia just too stifling a context to distribute engaging ideas for living. We love the literary playfulness of Mark Crick and the absurd but rewarding ideas that stream out of Redstone Press. We admire Mark Vernon's new series of books on The Art of Living which explore the philosophy of hunger, illness and even middle-age. The Penguin Great Ideas books are flying off our shelves.

What's unique about the shop is not only how carefully edited the selection is, but also that it is organised by concerns. So there is a shelf 'for those who want to be good parents', another 'for those who want to change the world', one 'for those who have fallen profoundly in love', one 'for those who need to get out of the city' and one 'for those with a short attention span'. We think of it as a chemist for the mind.

If books are to have the impact we believe they can, then it's also important to know when to put them down and use the ideas they have given us to live our real lives more wisely and openly. So our shop is also a place to browse and buy experiences. We run evening and weekend courses in love, work, family, play and politics; offer holidays to unexpected locations; organise conversation meals and run a bibliotherapy service.