Self and Self-management: Essays about Existing

These are essays about existing - about the fundamental strangeness of being alive and navigating one's own existence. Arnold Bennett brings his trademark dry wit to questions that still haunt us: how should we live? What do we owe ourselves? How do we manage the endless project of being a person? Written during the upheaval of the First World War and the fight for women's suffrage, these essays carry the weight of their moment while speaking across the century. Bennett observes with surgical precision the small vanities, quiet desperate negotiations, and improbable dignity of ordinary life. His prose rewards rereading - what seems merely amusing on first pass reveals itself as genuinely wise. This is a book for anyone who has ever wondered how to exist in the world without entirely making a fool of themselves.