On Purpose

Ten brief essays on how reading and meaningfully engaging with literature can help us live better, more purposeful lives From each of the ten essays emerges a simple, punchy maxim (‘Be the hero of your own life’; ‘Question authority’; ‘Change your mind’). Yet from these simple starting points wonderful, wise, and accessible essays unfold, taking the reader from Austen to Auden, Baudelaire to Brecht, to answer the question: what does literature teach us about what it means to be human? Ben Hutchinson extrapolates the universal truths that echo time and time again in literature, and offers a toolkit to his reader to reflect on and learn from the books they read and return to.

Ben Hutchinson is currently Professor of European Literature at Kent University. He writes for the TLS, Observer and Literary Review, and has published six books with the Oxford University Press, Reaktion and Chicago UP, which have been widely translated. He has lectured at institutions across the world, including at Oxford, Heidelberg, Harvard, Jerusalem, and the ENS Paris. He is also an Honorary Secretary of the British Comparative Literature Association.Ben Hutchinson is currently Professor of European Literature at Kent University. He writes for the TLS, Observer and Literary Review, and has published six books with the Oxford University Press, Reaktion and Chicago UP, which have been widely translated. He has lectured at institutions across the world, including at Oxford, Heidelberg, Harvard, Jerusalem, and the ENS Paris. He is also an Honorary Secretary of the British Comparative Literature Association.