iRead灰熊愛讀書☆全球矚目的英倫才子艾倫．狄波頓最具想像力的作品！
☆倫敦希斯洛國際機場首度大曝光，引爆話題的跨界文化創意
嘈雜、繽紛又美麗，機場是人類文明的想像中心。
在這裡，你可以選擇飛行的目的地，也會不自覺思考，希望如何改變自己的人生。
2009年夏天，艾倫．狄波頓獲邀擔任英國希斯洛國際機場的「首位駐站作家」。
機場方面授予狄波頓史無前例的無限制通行權，讓他得以結識來自全球各地的旅客，訪談形形色色的人物，包括行李搬運工、飛行員、高階主管，乃至機場牧師。他根據親身所見所聞，寫出了這部非凡的冥想之作，探討旅行、工作、人際關係以及日常生活的本質。
狄波頓與知名紀實攝影家理查．貝克（Richard Baker）合作，探索機場這個熟悉又神祕的「非場所」——這個我們亟於離開的地方，觀察其中的奇妙與庸俗之處，以及旅客與員工的互動。
狄波頓帶領讀者穿越出境、入境大廳和機場空側區，以他融合了風趣和智慧的一貫筆觸，讓我們知道，待在機場裡，可能比我們以為的更具啟發性。
From the bestselling author of The Art of Travel comes a wittily intriguing exploration of the strange "non-place" that he believes is the imaginative center of our civilization.
Given unprecedented access to one of the world’s busiest airports as a “writer-in-residence,” Alain de Botton found it to be a showcase for many of the major crosscurrents of the modern world — from our faith in technology to our destruction of nature, from our global interconnectedness to our romanticizing of the exotic. He met travelers from all over and spoke with everyone from baggage handlers to pilots to the airport chaplain. Weaving together these conversations and his own observations — of everything from the poetry of room service menus to the eerie silence in the middle of the runway at midnight — de Botton has produced an extraordinary meditation on a place that most of us never slow down enough to see clearly. Lavishly illustrated in color by renowned photographer Richard Baker, A Week at the Airport reveals the airport in all its turbulence and soullessness and — yes — even beauty.
★本書中譯本《機場裡的小旅行：狄波頓第五航站日記》由「先覺」出版。
作者簡介
艾倫．狄波頓(Alain de Botton)
1969年生於瑞士蘇黎世，在瑞士和英國兩地受教育。通曉法文、德文及英文。現居倫敦。
狄波頓才氣橫溢，文章智趣兼備，使他不僅風靡英倫，外國出版社也爭相出版他的作品，目前已有二十多國語言的譯本。近年並協助創立了「人生學校」
書評人康納立（Cressida Connolly）讚嘆狄波頓是「英國文壇的奇葩」；另一位書評人葛雷茲布魯克（Philip Glazebrook）認為：「這種奇才作家，恐怕連掃帚的傳記都寫得出來，而且這柄掃帚在他筆下絕對是活靈活現的。」知名旅行作家莫里斯（Jan Morris）更說：「我真懷疑狄波頓這輩子有沒有寫過一句乏味的句子。」
Alain de Botton is the bestselling author of books on the philosophy of subjects including love, travel and status. He is the founder of The School of Life, an organisation in London for whom he has conducted a guided weekend tour of Heathrow airport.
