There’s a funny, revealing moment in Alain de Botton’s new book, “A Week at the Airport,” when he discovers that the largest bookstore at Heathrow Airport, in London, does not stock his books. He decides to have a conversation with Manishankar, the shop’s manager, about what else might be available.“I explained,” Mr. de Botton writes, “that I was looking for the sort of books in which a genial voice expresses emotions that the reader has long felt but never before really understood; those that convey the secret, everyday things that society at large prefers to leave unsaid; those that make one feel somehow less alone and strange.”
Manishankar, confused, wonders if Mr. de Botton might want a magazine instead.
If pressed, I would admit that I have no idea who Alian de Botton is and that I probably don't read That Sort of Book anyway. But if the book holds up to the first three paragraphs of the review, I'm in.
