by Alain de Botton
This is not what we could call a "genuine" choice in the subject, but the literary result of a convenient offer from the director of BAA, a company which manages Heathrow's Airport (the so-called Terminal 5). He in fact has proposed to Alain De Botton a one week stay in the airport to allow to his T...
This one feels very much like a commissioned book. It isn't at par with the other de Botton books, but it still has some interesting thoughts, sandwiched between ramblings and images of the airport and the people in it. In a way, it feels like an essay that was stretched so it could be published int...
Alain de Botton is perhaps the only person who can make the M4 sound even remotely poetic. "Having avoided the earth for so long, wheels that had last touched ground in San Francisco or Mumbai hesitated and slowed almost to a standstill as they arched and prepared to greet the rubber-stained English...
Described as 'An uplifting and unique journey through the days and nights of the UK's largest airport'. It was an okay read.
I have mixed feeling about this one. I came into it expected A Week At The Airport to be a quirky, personable look into how an airport not only works but is the pinnacle of everywhere all at once. Instead although the book is very much a quirky, personable look into an airport I found myself extreme...
Alain de Botton was invited to spend a week at Heathrow, to observe and interpret the moments of the world's busiest airport. I anticipated a literary behind the scenes tour, but instead was rewarded with a different but ultimately more satisfying collection of reflections on the nature of journeys...
I agree with readers who found this to be lighter than they had hoped, and also with those who found it sufficiently absorbing. De Botton provides a nicely phrased but ultimately superficial pensée on his week spent in or adjacent to Heathrow. The idea of this project is a good one, though not de Bo...
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