The News: A User's Manual

Alain de Botton's books are of widely varying quality, but even his worst books typically have redeeming qualities, usually because of his witty prose or insightful philosophical observations. Not The News, de Botton's most misguided and least useful book yet, one that explores the news media and our relationship to it. It is obvious he has wandered into a subject where he is totally uninformed and unprepared, as he too often refers to "the media" and "the news" as monoliths, and fails to adequately consider the economic pressures that drive news creation. Not recommended.