‘The Wonderbox is a cornucopia of delights. Completely fascinating, beautifully written and brimming with insights that challenge our entrenched and predictable ways of seeing and doing, it draws on an amazing range of stories from the history of human culture to explain how we can find true meaning in life. Every thinking home should have one!’
Michael Wood, historian, film maker and author of The Story of England
‘The author’s enthusiasm for direct solutions to modern dilemmas is infectious.’
Sue Gerhardt, author of Why Love Matters and The Selfish Society
‘Think Alain de Botton meets Niall Ferguson – a wonderful mix of social history and good ideas for everyday living.’
Robert Kelsey, author of What’s Stopping You?
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Published by Profile Books.
About The Wonderbox
What can three millennia of history tell us about better living?
It is common to turn to philosophy, religion or psychology for insights into life’s big questions, but we rarely look to history for inspiration – and when we do it can be surprisingly powerful.
Uncovering the lessons that can be learned from the past, cultural thinker Roman Krznaric explores twelve universal topics, from work and love to money and creativity, and reveals the wisdom that we’ve been missing. What might we learn from the Ancient Greeks about the different varieties of love, from the industrialising British about job satisfaction, or from ancient Japanese pilgrims on the art of travel?
Just as a Renaissance ‘Wunderkammer’ was a curiosity cabinet full of fascinating objects, each with a story behind it, The Wonderbox is full of stories and ideas, ranging from the history of the househusband to the ten senses of the Middle Ages, along with a cast of characters including Mary Wollstonecraft, Helen Keller, and Ku Klux Klan leader CP Ellis, whose approaches to the art of living shed invaluable light on the decisions we make every day.
We often read about the past without thinking about the present, but The Wonderbox is ‘practical history’ – gaining insights from our predecessors on how to live better lives today.
Reviews
‘A fascinating rattlebag of intelligent, stimulating essays. The Wonderbox is very much in the mould of Alain de Botton’s bestsellers: densely researched but readable, wise and witty. By taking the long view to debunk some myths of modern life (house husbands are not such a new invention; family meals were never golden times of civilised conversation), Krznaric frees us from passing trends to answer the fundamental question: how should be live now?’ Carl Wilkinson, Financial Times
‘Taking one hefty theme per chapter – such as love, work or home – Krznaric serves up a fascinating series of accounts of how we got where we are now, sifting the valuable from the worthless with an impressive indifference to current fashions. After reading The Wonderbox, endlessly shopping for stuff you already have will seem distinctly strange.’ Reader’s Digest, selected as the January 2012 Recommended Read
‘Ranging from such lofty issues as love and death to the finer points of carpentry, Krznaric offers a compendium of fascinating and quirky anecdotes and character studies, refiguring them as practical fables for everyday life. Though a pleasure to read cover-to-cover, this book lends itself perfectly to the occasional reader looking for workable solutions to any dilemma. The scope of the stories and the versatility of Krznaric’s interpretations are at once fascinating and illuminating.’ Emily Best, We Love This Book
‘This modern guide to living a good life by nurturing relationships, giving more to others, and resisting the self-imposed tyrannies of work, time, ambition and achievement, is entertaining and instructive.’ Iain Finlayson, The Times
‘A pot-pourri of delights. Krznaric has a genuine skill in examining aspects of life that most people take for granted and he can make the reader look at them again from a fresh and new angle. The chapter on the senses was intriguing and made me look at an everyday aspect of life in a truly new way. The range and breadth of learning on display in this book is combined with a chatty style that makes it an easy and delightful read.’ Five-star review, Clare Reddaway, The Bookbag
‘A fascinating book – and an illuminating canter through places and epochs – that uses history to inform us about our lives and to help fill the spiritual vacuum that haunts the 21st century.’ Miriam Cosic, The Australian
‘History has the answers if we care to listen to them – a premise so simple it is surprising no one has highlighted it before. Krznaric selects some of the most telling, assembling them in a Wunderkammer or cabinet of curiosities.’ James Attlee, The Independent
‘A guaranteed pick-me-up for the early days of January! And a book I’m going to be returning to for years.’ Clare English, BBC Radio Scotland Book Cafe
‘Not many self-help gurus would advise you to chuck in your job, throw away your wrist watch and spend time living on the streets…A grab bag of bon mots and life lessons taken from the greatest minds in history.’ Jasper Hamill, The Big Issue
‘An intriguing upmarket self-help guide.’ The Guardian
‘It’s easy to see how modern life could get us down. But fret not: Roman Krznaric’s new book The Wonderbox provides solace. He delves into the lives of social, economic and cultural historians to track down ideas from the past that could help us lead a happier life in the Western world today.’ Helen Brown, Elle Decoration magazine
‘What is love? Help has come from the author Roman Krznaric in his new book The Wonderbox, a kind of self-help manual that uses historical precedent to shine an old light on new problems. Mr Krznaric’s service is to break down love into the six varieties recognised by the Ancient Greeks. A great guide for the confused in love.’ Tom Hodgkinson, The Independent on Sunday
‘Inspiration for bold experiments in living.’ Review and author profile in The Oxford Times
‘Roman Krznaric delves into the wonderbox of history…and reveals how the past can prompt us to aim higher than we do.’ London Metro.
‘Original and intriguing.’ National Library of Scotland
‘Brim-full of insights drawn not from philosophy, religious teachings or psychology but drawing on the writing and lives of great writers including Tolstoy, Thoreau and Orwell. Krznaric weaves together a compelling, fresh argument about how we conduct our relationships, make decisions about the life we lead and the crucial importance of empathy.’ Steve Moore, CEO The Big Society Network
‘The Wonderbox is a treasury of history and philosophy that manages also to be truly, practically motivational.’ John-Paul Flintoff, author of Sew Your Own
News
Put yourself on a chronological diet! My call to arms against the tyranny of the clock, in The Guardian. Part of a special feature Make The Most of Your Time, curated by The School of Life.
In this author profile and review of The Wonderbox in The Australian, I discuss how growing up in a multicultural household in Sydney – including watching my Polish father play poker with his Eastern European mates – shaped the way I think about the art of living.
Why do we spend so much of our precious holiday time queueing up to see famous artworks and monuments, even if we’re not that interested in them? I talk about my ideas on alternative ways to travel in this feature on the BBC World television programme Fast Track. There’s also an accompanying article on five ways to make our holidays a life-changing experience.
So you think the superdad who can change nappies blind-folded is a modern invention? Not so, they’ve been around for hundreds of years, I argue in The Guardian.
In this podcast interview with Pat Kenny on RTE Radio 1 in Ireland, I discuss – amongst other things – Henry David Thoreau’s idea that ‘a man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone’.
Why do we need to start talking about Deathstyle? Discover the answer in this interview for BBC Radio Scotland’s Book Cafe.
What might we learn about life from an eighteenth-century feminist firebrand and a wandering Zen poet? In this article in The Huffington Post – based on The Wonderbox – I profile my Five Icons for Better Living in 2012.
Is 2012 the year for a digital diet? In this article in The Independent on Sunday I discuss whether social media is killing the art of conversation (with a little help from Dr Johnson, the most disastrous conversationalist in British history).
An interview at The Browser, where I talk about five books to inspire adventurous living in 2012 – and which inspired The Wonderbox too. From tales of tramping the streets of East London to life lessons from a Holocaust survivor.
In this podcast for BBC History Magazine I discuss The Wonderbox, and what we can learn about the good life from Aka pygmies, nineteenth-century organists and even Spanish conquistadors. And why did Goethe say, ‘he who cannot draw on three thousand years is living from hand to mouth’?
In the following video, The Six Varieties of Love, I reveal why the Ancient Greeks were far more sophisticated in the art of loving than we are today, and argue that we need to get over our addiction to romantic love. Recorded live at All Ears storytelling club in London.
