SOURCE: Brownrigg, Sylvia. “Dr. Feelgood.” Los Angeles Times Book Review (30 April 2000): 6.

In the following review, Brownrigg asserts that de Botton's anti-philosophical approach in The Consolations of Philosophy does not do justice to his subject matter.

Let's be honest: None of us has enough time to read everything we ought to or even want to. As the stack of books we should read to be culturally literate grows ever higher, competing as it does with CDs everyone seems to be listening to and movies it would be good to have an opinion about, even the weight of the Sunday papers pushes us dangerously close to the question: Can I really fit this in?

In an increasingly servant-based culture, we do the sensible thing: Pay other people to read for us. The cheapest way to do this, of course, is to buy a book review. (My job as reviewer is...