Get a Life! A Guide to Finding a Philosophy to Live By is a witty starter kit for everyday philosophy. Alan Poon distills complex traditions into plain, accessible language with playful pop culture references. I especially appreciated the quick self-assessment at the end, which helps readers reflect on which philosophy might suit them best. It is a helpful touch for anyone new to exploring these ideas.

For me, this paired nicely with How to Live a Good Life (Massimo Pigliucci, ed.), which I read last summer in my doctoral program. That one felt like sitting in a room with many teachers, comprehensive and informative, while Get a Life! offers a lighter, more approachable entry point.

Recommended for readers curious about philosophy but wary of heavy academic texts.

Thank you NetGalley and BooksGoSocial for the ARC!

This fascinating book is an introduction to philosophy. To be more specific it is a very brief introduction to 8 different schools of philosophical thought. When I say very brief I mean it. The book basically gives the bullet points of each system’s basic beliefs and the beliefs of the people that would practice each school of thought, with the understanding that the comparison can help the reader to pick a philosophy to live by and also the understanding that if a person wants to know more about any particular school of thought they can do so themselves after they know the basics.

Overall I would have to say this really enjoyed reading this. There were several schools of thought in here I was unfamiliar with and reading about them was interesting. I fully admit to not knowing much about each school of philosophy so I can’t say how well each was summarized. I think each school as written in a way that was very easy to understand, especially for the basic beginner like myself. I find myself very curious about multiple of the philosophical schools I read about in here and will be looking up more books about them in the future.

There is a little Buzzfeed style quiz at the end of this to help the reader see where their thoughts already lie in relation to everything discussed in the book and I really like that addition. It can help a reader see what they might want to read into further.

Overall I really liked this and I highly recommend it.