This is a slim book, but it's packed with information and uplifting insight into the subject. Tackling the theme through an A-Z it provides short essays about everything from capitalism to zeitgeist, failure to perfectionism, acceptance to urgency. It's incredibly readable and energising!

The author is a cultural historian and burnout coach and she draws on science, literature and philosophy, ancient wisdom and theology to explore the causes and history of exhaustion and burnout, revealing new ways to combat stress and negativity.

She refers to writers such as Matthew Syed and 'Black Box Thinking' and Oliver Burkeman and 'Meditations for Mortals', as well as Henry David Thoreau, Marcus Aurelius, Herman Melville's short story 'Bartleby, the Scrivener', and much more.

Burnout is said to be the defining feeling of the post-pandemic world - but why are we all so exhausted?

"Most of us do not suffer burnout on account of our bad stress management skills," she says, "but because the structures in which we are embedded are making us ill."

It is a cultural rather than individual problem, she says. The modern way of life has led us to believe that we need to be productive in every moment and every aspect of our lives. We have become defined by our careers and occupations, seeing all of our lives through the lens of work.

There are some fascinating chapters here - Kaizen, for example, which is the Japanese approach to work which, in seeking the reform of a system, will look to suggestions from those on the production line rather than the managers in offices. Or the pros and cons of perfectionism. 

This is a great book to dip into but also to refer back to with its valuable reminders of what is important in life. Excellent!