André Maurois, a classic of 20th-century French literature, a prose writer and essayist, an astonishing erudite, author of exquisite novellas and novels, famous romanticized biographies of Dumas, Balzac, Hugo, Byron, and many others, creator of deep essays on the history of England, the USA, and France, in his later years returned to the genre of philosophical essay. "Open Letter to a Young Man on the Science of Living" (1966) forms an ideal pair with his celebrated "Letters to an Unknown Woman": it is an honest conversation between an eighty-year-old writer and a twenty-year-old youth. Maurois reflects on morality, meaning, purpose, and principles of life, education, politics, religion, marriage, literary work, modernity in general - in the guise of a delicate instruction, he presents us the life credo of an enlightened and thoughtful person, and his experience can teach us much. The collection of aphorisms and observations "The Art of Conversation" (1927) is dedicated to the skill of conducting a conversation, that is, establishing subtle connections with the most enigmatic phenomenon we may encounter and which has always deeply interested Maurois - with other people.
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