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  • Published: 2 July 2019
  • ISBN: 9781784704254
  • Imprint: Vintage
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 272
  • RRP: $22.99

Aristotle’s Way

How Ancient Wisdom Can Change Your Life




How to live happily in the modern world, guided by the ancient ideas of Aristotle

‘Wonderful and timely … Hugely recommended’ STEPHEN FRY

What do you and an ancient philosopher have in common? It turns out much more than you might think…

Aristotle was an extraordinary thinker yet he was preoccupied by an ordinary question: how to be happy. In this handbook to his timeless teachings, Professor Edith Hall shows how ancient thinking is precisely what we need today, even if you don’t know your Odyssey from your Iliad. In ten practical lessons you can learn how to make good decisions, how to ace an interview, how to choose a partner and how to face death. This is advice that won’t go out of fashion.

‘A beguiling cross between Mary Beard and Mary Poppins’ Observer

  • Published: 2 July 2019
  • ISBN: 9781784704254
  • Imprint: Vintage
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 272
  • RRP: $22.99

About the author

Edith Hall

Edith Hall is one of Britain’s foremost classicists, having held posts at the universities of Royal Holloway, Cambridge, Durham, Reading, and Oxford. In 2015 she was awarded the Erasmus Medal of the European Academy, given to a scholar whose works represent a significant contribution to European culture and scientific achievement. She is the first woman to win this award.

Hall regularly writes in the Times Literary Supplement, reviews theatre productions on radio, and has written and edited more than a dozen works on the ancient world, including Introducing the Ancient Greeks. She teaches at King’s College London and lives in Gloucestershire.

Also by Edith Hall

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Praise for Aristotle’s Way

Edith Hall has resurrected Aristotle as the most relevant ancient philosopher for our times. A must-read if you’ve ever wanted to know a bit more about this modest visionary.

Tom Hodgkinson, editor of THE IDLER

Readers keen to live a Good Life – and prepare for a Good Death – should dive head first into this fount of ancient but still modern wisdom.

Paul Cartledge, A.G. Leventis Professor of Greek Culture Emeritus at the University of Cambridge

A wonderfully lively and personal guide to Aristotle's philosophy of well-being. Read it and flourish!

Sarah Bakewell, author of HOW TO LIVE

In this wise and delightful guide to the Grecian's teachings, Professor Edith Hall makes a highly convincing case for the ongoing relevance of ancient thinking

Bookseller

Wonderful and timely. Aristotle’s influence has been immense, but Edith Hall’s authoritative, warmly readable, clear and approachable book opens Aristotle up and establishes him as a man who addresses the issues of the human heart as much as the human mind. She gives us an Aristotle for our times as much as his own and all those that came between. Hugely recommended.

STEPHEN FRY

Edith Hall has recast Aristotle's text into everyday language, and applied his lessons on everything from happiness to, for instance, resisting temptation, writing a job application or using the Greek's chart of Virtues and Vices to analyse one's character.

Daily Telegraph

A wonderfully accessible picture of Aristotle ... I found it very compelling

John Gray, BBC Radio 4, Start the Week

[Hall] has written a practical and enjoyable guide to Aristotle’s philosophy as a recipe for contentment in the modern world.

Daisy Dunn, Literary Review

Hall drills down into the relevant Aristotelian wisdom to unearth piquant tips.

Gwen Smith, Mail on Sunday

[Hall] peppers her account with stories from her own life in a frank, discursive style

Dan Brotzel, Irish News

Hall navigates her way through the Aristotelian oeuvre with elegant ease

Christopher Bray, Tablet

Hall gamely breathes new life into [Aristotle's] doctrines (which she admits can be heavy-going) for 21st-century readers, flitting over the centuries and across cultural borders, taking in everyone from Philip of Macedon to Pharrell Williams of "Happy" with breezy aplomb. A beguiling cross between Mary Beard and Mary Poppins, Hall is enjoying herself outside the ivory towers

Lisa Allardice, Observer

A clear and frequently interesting survey of Aristotle’s thought

Sam Leith, Guardian

[The] conversational tone…suits her subject – recreating the congenial atmosphere of an Athenian symposium

Sameer Rehim, Prospect

[It is] mesmeric to hear Aristotelian wisdom freed from dusty, leather-bound volumes to be so emphatically applied to our every-day experience

Thomas Hennessy, Palantinate