On Purpose: Ten Lessons on the Meaning of Life

Written by Ben Hutchinson

Ten brief essays on how reading and meaningfully engaging with literature can help us live better, more purposeful lives.

How do we live successfully?

How do we live fully?

Identifying the meaning of life and where we are heading preoccupies all of us at some stage or another. Who better to help us articulate this sense of direction than the most articulate people among us? Writers and thinkers, Ben Hutchinson suggests in this sparkling new book, help us reflect on purpose.

Interweaving his own (mis-)adventures with those of major authors such as T.S. Eliot, Virginia Woolf and R.M. Rilke, Hutchinson proposes ten ways in which reading and writing encourage us to ask difficult questions, project our minds into the past and future, and see ourselves and others differently. Engaging and aphoristic, this book is for anyone who finds themselves wondering how to live more mindfully, more forcefully – more fully.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Release date: Sep 14, 2023
• ISBN: 9780008588489

Ben Hutchinson

Ben Hutchinson is an award-winning essayist, critic and professor of European literature. A consultant editor at the Times Literary Supplement, he is the author of seven books, including The Midlife Mind and Comparative Literature: A Very Short Introduction. His writing appears regularly in the national and international press.