Friendship

THE MEANING OF FRIENDSHIP

A heavy burden is placed on friendship. We turn to friends for our happiness. Some say they trust friends more than family. And there are those who want to marry their best friend – a very novel idea. Then, in the networked age, we believe, or hope, that friendship is elastic enough to connect us across the web of complex lives, and strong enough not to snap. But is it? For whilst friendship offers much, few ask about its perils and limitations, as well as its promise.
Mark Vernon examines the love shared by friends, linking the rich insights of the great philosophers of friendship with numerous illustrations from modern life to ask about friendship and sex, friends at work, the politics of friendship, and its spirituality. In this new version of his book, previously published as The Philosophy of Friendship, he explores how notions of friendship may be changing because of the internet. He also has a new chapter on self-help and friendship, challenging notions of friendship that arise from evolution and psychology.

PRAISE

‘In secular, consuming society nothing is more urgently needed than a cogent, passionate justification of those values we hold most dear in spite of everything. Mark Vernon passionately justifies friendship as a value lying at the very heart of what we are. This is a book that will make you feel better about being human.’
Bryan Appleyard

‘Mark Vernon’s book will change the way you think about the people you see every day – at work, in your street, in the pub, at home. He helps us to appreciate and to nourish many different kinds of friendship.’
Sophie Howarth, The School of Life

‘A history of the idea of friendship through the works of various thinkers from Plato to Nietzsche. It’s genuinely useful, lucid, informative and wise.’
Mark Simpson, The Independent, Books of the Year

‘A wonderfully thoughtful and timely reflection on the importance of friendship in helping us become honest, courageous and wise.’
Stuart Jeffries, The Guardian    

"Friends are special people. If you are a friend, it means you were chosen. You are not in someone's life by happenstance, or by accident of birth. You're in someone's life because he or she wants you there." 

"Every friend is a gift from God. Treat each of your friends as the gift he or she is."