Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words

David Whyte explores the underlying meaning of 52 ordinary words, with an introduction by Maria Popova of Brain Pickings .

In Consolations David Whyte unpacks aspects of being human that many of us spend our lives trying vainly to avoid - loss, heartbreak, vulnerability, fear - boldly reinterpreting them, fully embracing their complexity, never shying away from paradox in his relentless search for truth.

Beginning with 'Alone' and closing with 'Work', each chapter in this life-affirming book is a meditation on meaning and context, an invitation to shift and broaden our perspectives on life: pain and joy, honesty and anger, confession and vulnerability, the experience of feeling overwhelmed and the desire to run away from it all. Through this lens, procrastination may be a necessary ripening; hiding an act of freedom; and shyness something that accompanies the first stage of revelation.