This book is about the quest for order in a perplexing world.

Ideas to Save Your Life explores the wisdom of more than twenty eminent thinkers across history, from Pythagoras to the contemporary Australian philosopher Frank Jackson; from Mungo Woman to Martha Nussbaum, by way of Simone Weil and Iris Murdoch. It ranges widely across subjects to ask: from where do we draw a sense of life’s purpose? And how can philosophy make life better?

Michael McGirr’s approach is warm and personal. Ideas to Save Your Life is often funny, but it is always serious about the task of philosophy. It makes the impenetrable accessible, the indescribable palpable, and invites you to change how you see the world.