In this new accessible philosophy of friendship, Mark Vernon links the resources of the philosophical tradition with numerous illustrations from modern culture to ask what friendship is, how it relates to sex, work, politics and spirituality. Unusually, he argues that Plato and Nietzsche, as much as Aristotle and Aelred, should be put centre stage. Their penetrating and occasionally tough insights are invaluable if friendship is to be a full, not merely sentimental, way of life for today.

This is a very far-ranging book, covering topics such as political friendships, friendships at work, sex, lovers and friendships and how these play off or against each other, and the ambiguities of same-sex Friendship.

From the introduction:
“For a long time I was single. I relied heavily on friends for company, support and affection. And most of the time I was happy about that. Implicitly, I agreed with Aristotle: who would choose to live without friends even if they had every other good thing, he said. Moreover I regard myself as exceptionally lucky with my friends and still do.
But for all that, I was often alone and sometimes lonely. The friendships I enjoyed only went so far.
The limits were most obvious when compared to the relationships I witnessed between lovers or within families. It seemed to me that notwithstanding the occasional exceptions, friendship simply cannot bear the demands and intimacies, great and small, that are the very stuff of these other relationships of love and blood.”
Mark Vernon, 2005