Marcel Proust was arguably the greatest 20th-century French novelist. He also had a deep connection with neurological diseases and with neurologists. Through his physician father, he knew Brissaud (Charcot’s pupil), considered treatment by Dejerine and consulted Babinski when his health failed in later years.¹ Alain de Botton’s commentary entitled ‘How Proust can change your life’² therefore made for keen reading among our Book Club, and we recommend it.

At a gentle 215 pages, including pictures and split helpfully into digestible themed chapters, de Botton mixes advice for a content life with humour extracted from Marcel Proust’s life and works to help make our days brighter. He argues, as Proust does, that often to see something in a better light, we simply need a new way of looking at it. The relevance of this to diagnosticians, who need to be good noticers, is clear.³

An early puzzle for us included deciding what disease Proust must have had. We know that …