The News: a user’s manual. Alain De Botton. 2014.

The news occupies the same dominant position in modern society as religion once did, but we rarely consider its impact on us. In The News: a User’s Manual De Botton takes twenty-five archetypal news stories - from an air rash to a murder, a celebrity interview to a political scandal - and submits them to unusually intense analysis.

He raises questions like: how come disaster stories are often so uplifting? What makes the love lives of celebrities so interesting? Why do we enjoy politicians being brought down?<Why are upheavals in far-off lands often so……boring?