On Beautiful Days Such as This

'Engrossing, entertaining, and deeply evocative, "On Beautiful Days Such as This" is a must read for anyone who has wondered how a real philosopher thinks as a real human being.' -- Daniel Klein, New York Times best-selling author of 'Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar' and London Times and Sunday Times best-selling author of 'Travels with Epicurus'.***A philosopher-cum-singer-songwriter repairs to a Greek island in order to restore his dilapidated soul. On beautiful days such as this, he muses on our search for those things that make us feel most alive, especially as this applies to the 'Big Three' of place, work, and love: finding the place (or places) where we feel most at home in this world; finding the kind of work that matters to us; and finding love that endures. He muses on a great many other matters pertaining to this strange and twisting life too: from songs, philosophy, and the rewards and dangers associated with 'the ideas game' to the nuclear and environmental threats to our collective future; from the tricky realms of acclaim, criticism, disillusionment, and inspiration to those of love, loss, and, inevitably, mortality.Along the way, he reflects on his passionate love affair with the English-Greek actress and playwright Marianna Sophoulis; his time spent working in Plato's Academy; the hard-bitten lessons he has learned in winding his way along the Western Trail; and the tensions we must all learn to negotiate in our lives between surface appearances and underlying realities. By way of doing justice to these wide-ranging themes he interweaves an equally wide range of forms of written expression too - from narrative prose, lively anecdotes, and thoughtful musings to pithy song lyrics, arresting onstage drama, and 'live' philosophical talks - the better to capture more richly the journey that has been, the journey that is to come, and the search we must all make for 'what it is that matters most when all is said and done'.