Ideas to Save Your Life

'Michael McGirr is a bit of a twenty-first century alchemist with words: nothing is too deep to be made understandable, his aim is consolation and kindness always, and the result is often magic.' * Geraldine Doogue * 'His anecdotes will make you laugh out loud. If you haven't read any books by him before, seek them out.' -- Good Reading Magazine 'A wonderful excursion through a host of ideas and thinkers.' * Meredith Lake, ABC RN Soul Search * 'A tonic...A book to unscramble your brain and help refresh your perspective.' * Happy Mag * 'A lively, often comic, narrative combined with a romp through some of the key ideas of ancient philosophy...What McGirr draws from the well of philosophy serves his purpose as a storyteller and a critic of society, and he leads us from the personal to the philosophical in an entertaining and often insightful way.' * Janna Thompson, Australian Book Review * 'A bracing romp...Definitely add it to the Christmas list.' * Fullers Weekly * 'McGirr's survey of more than twenty major philosophers, including Socrates, Montaigne, William James, Simone Weil and Mary Midgley, is very much about which of their ideas retains authentic traction in a vocational life dedicated to making the world a more just and humane place...[This is an] erudite yet chatty collection of essays...New lights turned on for me as I read Ideas to Save Your Life. I'm thankful for the laughs too.' * Gregory Day, Age *