Self-help books are an incredibly popular genre of nonfiction. According to WordsRated, a non-commercial, international research data and analytics group, “the self-help book category is one of the fastest-growing nonfiction categories” and in 2020, “this industry was worth $10.5 billion.”

With interest in personal development continuing to grow at a steady pace, “the self-improvement market is expected to rise to $14 billion by 2025,” WordsRated noted.

Philosophy books might not seem like typical self-help books, but they can inspire a thoughtful approach to life that is sometimes lacking in today’s world. Renovating My Life, with Aristotle as an Architect by Fenia Tsanaka offers insight into the ways philosophy, in this case the Aristotelian variety, can help us on our life’s journey.

Tsanaka notes in the book’s descriptions: “As an architect I realized that on the same plot of land, with the same laws, depending on which architect we choose, we will build a completely different house. The same is true of our lives. Depending on which philosophy we adopt, in the same social environment we will live a different life. So the question arises: ‘Which philosophy should we choose to live a good life?’ In this quest, I turned to the philosophy of Aristotle, which starts from the basic premise ‘our life is our actions’ and answers existential and simple, everyday questions that we all have.”

Among those questions: “What is the meaning of life? How to handle our anger? What does love mean? How to form human relationships without tensions and fights? How to conquer our fears? Why do diets fail? Why do we often act against our own wishes? Do our experiences shape our thinking? How can our choices be good?”

“This book is the experiential journey of discovering Aristotelian philosophy and how it can change us,” Tsanaka writes. “Change how we feel, the way we see situations, the way we think and ultimately the way we act. In short, how we can renovate our lives by changing the situations that frustrate us in order to gain a lasting appetite for life.”

Fenia Tsanaka is an architect, not a philosopher. She was born in Athens in 1969 and is the mother of two. She studied architecture at the National Technical University of Athens. Since then, she has been the head of an architecture firm, carrying out studies, supervising and constructing private projects. She singles out her 25 years of cooperation with the Onassis Foundation, having currently undertaken the supervision of the expansion of the Onassis Cardiac Surgery Center.
She has travelled to more than 45 countries which has defined and shaped her as a “citizen of the world.” For the last 10 years she has also been involved in practical philosophy, exploring the meaning of a good life and how to build it. She authored the book ‘Renovating my Life, with Aristotle as an Architect,’ published by Armos in 2020, which was also published in English in 2023. Since the publication of her book, she has been interviewed in print, radio, and online. She has given a series of individual guest lectures in various professional circles. Furthermore, in 2023, she ran a lecture series at the B&M Theocharakis Foundation and for 2024 she is planning a new lecture cycle titled, ’14 Emotions Calling for Renovation, with Aristotle as an Architect.’

Renovating My Life, with Aristotle as an Architect by Fenia Tsanaka is available online.