Biographies & Memoirs, Social Sciences, General, Sociology 

Po Bronson's new book tackles the biggest, most threatening, most obvious question that anyone has to face, 'what should I do with my life?' It is a problem, he explains, that is increasingly encountered not just by the young but by people who have half their lives or more behind them. With the intoxicating days of the 80s and 90s behind us and the world entering recession, many people are being forced to confront their real aims and desires. And the modern route to self, discovery, Bronson suggests, is to trade what you have for a completely different way of life. Bronson's book is a fascinating account of finding and following people who have uprooted their lives and fought with these questions in radical ways. From the investment banker who gave it all up to become a catfish farmer in Mississippi, to the chemical enginner from Walthamstow who decided to become a lawyer in his sixties, and the institutional investor who gave up his job and moved, disastrously, to Germany on a whim; these stories of individual dilemma and dramatic - and sometimes unsuccessful - gambles are bound up with Bronson's account of his own search for a calling. - from Amzon