Curiosity is the instinct that prompts us to act, and a book about curiosity should tell us how to live. This is the first to do so, with its twelve rules for life.
Although a fatal sin in Eden, curiosity is a necessary virtue in our world. It asks us to search for new experiences, to create, to invent. It tells us to look inward, to be curious about the needs of other people and about our own motives. It tells us not to be a stick in the mud or a bore. In particular, curiosity asks us to examine the most fundamental questions of our existence. When you put all this together, curiosity tells us how to live our lives in full.
“This book is so wittily presented and frequently entertaining, it is only gradually that the reader comes to appreciate fully Frank Buckley’s startling erudition and the perceptiveness of his main points. This is a delightful, as well as provocative, and ultimately engrossing read.”
— Conrad Black
“Frank Buckley takes us on a wonderful tour around a well-read mind and a cultivated imagination always heading for the next experience around the corner. His voyage of curiosity rambles through literature, art, science, and history so entertainingly that by the time he glimpses harbor … you may have circumnavigated the globe, but your curiosity is never exhausted.”
— John O’Sullivan, president of the Danube Institute in Budapest
“Don’t let the title fool you. This is not a conventional self-help book outlining a path to a fitter, thinner, and richer you but rather a paean to traditional virtues now fallen into desuetude by the soul-corroding power of media and the popular culture – which is no culture at all. Buckley combines an intellectual’s probity and a scholar’s vast referential reach with a compassionate humanism in the service of one overarching goal: to make you a better person. His first rule – don’t make rules – sets the reader on a path to risk-taking, moral courage, steadfastness, originality, and creativity. Which is, after all, the essence of humanity itself.”
— Michael Walsh, author of The Devil’s Pleasure Palace, The Fiery Angel
“This is an eloquent paean to a life that embraces uncertainty. Buckley tells it like it is and inspires us to adopt a risk-taking and experimentative orientation toward the future. A must-read for those prepared to embark on a voyage of discovery.” — Frank Furedi, author of How Fear Works: The Culture of Fear in the 21st Century
“In a world of cruelly imposed meaninglessness and technological detachment, Curiosity is a much-needed oasis of wisdom on how to live a virtuous and happy life. It awakens the soul to mortality, joy, and imagination and invites us to see that although man is a finite being, he has a great capacity to move toward the infinite.”
— Emina Melonic, Ph.D., contributor and critic, The New Criterion and Law and Liberty