Embracing the ordinary : lessons from the champions of everyday life

It has always been difficult to appreciate everyday life, often devalued as dreary, banal and burdensome, and never more so than in a culture besotted with fantasy, celebrity and glamour.

Yet many writers, artists, film-makers and photographers have celebrated the ordinary life around them, and many philosophers, anthropologists, psychologists and neuroscientists have offered insights into the difficulties and rewards of paying attention to the here and now.

With characteristic wit and earthiness, Michael Foley - author of the bestselling The Age of Absurdity- draws on the work of these artists and thinkers, and encourages us to delight in the complexities of everyday psychopathology.

With astute observation, Foley brings fresh insights to such things as the banality of everyday speech, the madness and weirdness of snobbery, love and sex, and the strangeness of everyday objects and the everyday environment, such as the office.

It is all more fascinating, comical and mysterious than you think.