Rating: 
Summary: Don't be discouraged
Review: If you're thinking of buying this book do not be discouraged by "damning" reviews. It is fun and enjoyable. Perhaps it is not "serious" philosophy, but it does have something to offer. The chapters on Montaigne, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche are particularly entertaining. Which, after all, is what they are meant to be, and what the book is meant to be. Close inspection of the cover drawings should convince one of that.
Rating: 
Summary: hey claire! superman was dc, not marvel!
Review: anyways, this book is perfect for those nights when youre bored and have nothing to do but go to barnes and nobles to read magazines. instead of picking up a magazine, read this book, as it wont be much more difficult to read than the love advice columns in FHM. consider consolations... to be a sort of diet-book, you get the taste of reading something difficult and refined and intellectual, but you dont have to pay for it with years of study and rereading and pondering. at any rate, itll make you at least look intelligent and maybe somebody will comment on your refined literary taste. if nobody talks to you, then read consolation for a broken heart, de botton's treasure of a chapter on schopennhauer (sp?) and youll find out its all a sick ploy on gods part anyways. but seriously, an enjoyable book.
Rating:
Summary: Misunderstood by some, but a truly profound book
Review: The easiest accusation one can make is to say that this book is 'shallow.' But really what de Botton is doing is extremely clever. Making it seem as though he is simply recording what certain great philosophers saying, he is actually serving up a very dazzling interpretation of them. It is made to look so easy that one might say 'This is just philosophy for dummies.' But it's really not. To summarize and elucidate the philosophy of, for example, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche is an incredible achievement. When de Button wrote his book on Proust, lots of people said, 'He's just dumming down the great master.' It wasn't true of that book, and now in this book, it similarly isn't true that he is dumming anything down. The last reviewer from New York really made me mad. If The Consolations of Philosophy is pretentious, then I'm Socrates. Buy it, read it, and discover for yourself just what a joy this book is.
Rating: 
Summary: Pretentious
Review: Anyone with a passing knowledge of philosophy will find de Botton's pick'n'mix style superficial in the extreme. Wild exagerations, lazy generalizations, and improbable connections are offered up like solemn pronouncements from on high. The New York Times wrote a damming review of this book, and I can see why. De Botton thinks he is cleverer than his audience and lets us know on every page.
Rating:
Summary: A Witty, Lively Book
Review: I had not intended to purchase this book, but it was staring impudently at me from a shelf of musty philosophy as I was passing on my way to something more light-hearted. It laughed at me and dared me to pick it up and to turn its pages. You see, its cousin How Proust Can Change Your Life similarly seduced me. With a sigh, I purchased The Consolations of Philosophy and much too quickly devoured its contents. As with the Proust volume, I plan to loan Consolations to a couple of friends who can be trusted to return it to me, assuming that they allow me to read a few passages aloud to capture their attention. Whereas the Proust volume left me laughing aloud in delight, Consolations has left me wanting more....
Rating:
Summary: Superb
Review: Entertaining and informative, thought-provoking and playful--that's Alain de Botton's new book for you. No wonder this is such a huge seller in Britain right now. Although I've not seen the television series on which the book is based (or is it the other way around?), I do want to reassure my fellow readers at Amazon that if they've liked any of de Botton's previous books (especially HOW PROUST CAN CHANGE YOUR LIFE), they won't be disappointed at all with this new work, which comes with those amusing illustrations that are a trade mark of a de Botton book. While I suppose it's possible to cavil at the book's "popularization" of philosophy, the short answer to such complaints is simply to ask those cranky readers to stick to the millions of dusty old academic monographs at their local university libraries and stay away from someone as fun and playful as de Botton. If philosophy has always been THIS fun, I tell you, there would never have been any need for the Cultural Wars and books like THE CLOSING OF THE AMERICAN MIND.
Rating:
Summary: Wow
Review: Plato, Socrates, Epicurus, Montaigne, Shopenhauer..."all" these philosophers lives and philosophies are vividly described by the author.
You'd absolutely love this book.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Introduction to Life and Philosophy.
Review: As a professor of philsophy - you can often spend so much time specializing in one philosopher or another - or one philosophy or another that whole groups of philosophers escape you. Epicurus was one of those. I had heard so much about Epicurus that was negative that I had not given him much time in my research and reading. It was De Botton that turned me back on to him and started my two year exploration into his philosophies. De Botton gives a short, succinct, picturegraphic explanation of Epicurus (as well as Socrates, Montaigne, and others) that allows the reader to access thier general thoughts (arranged around certain topics originally set forth by Boethius). However, what I liked the most about this work is that it exposes the practical advice of each of these philosophers about dealing with life as a deeper thinker. Often I hear from my friends that I 'think too much'. In fact, deeper thinking has lost me many a friend - cost me a few jobs - and does not mean life is any easier. De Botton allows the philosophers who have lived these similar lives to give thier practical advice - and makes reading thier advice fun. Take a read - you will not be dissapointed.
Rating:
Summary: It engaged me with life.
Review: I was very wrapped up in my own problems. This awesome book came along and persuaded me to look a little deeper at life.
"In the course of his own life and in its misfortunes, he will look less at his own individual lot than at the lot of mankind as a whole, and accordingly will conduct himself more as a knower than a sufferer."
That led me to Schopenhauer and Nietzsche; philosophy; existentialism; Sartre.
"Contemplate the restless industry of wretched little ants...the life of most insects is nothing but a restless labour for preparing nourishment and dwelling for the future offspring that will come from their eggs...the philosopher did not have to spell out the parallels. We pursue love affairs, chat in cafes with prospective partners and have children, with as much choice in the matter as moles and ants, and are rarely any happier."
That led me to evolution; Richard Dawkins; Daniel Dennett; Steven Pinker; science; psychology.
That in turn led to anthropology; Lionel Tiger; sociology; Max Weber; Louis Althusser; social conditioning.
That in turn led me to Warren Farrell; the Myth of Male Power; Esther Vilar; The Manipulated Man; Rich Zubaty.
This book sparked so many enquiries and curiosities - it engaged me with life. Thankyou, ADB.
Rating:
Summary: Wow
Review: Plato, Socrates, Epicurus, Montaigne, Shopenhauer..."all" these philosophers lives and philosophies are vividly described by the author.
You'd absolutely love this book.
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