Divided into thirty-one chapters, this ambitious book attempts to illuminate a broad range problems using philosophy, ranging from issues of domestic violence to art. It makes some memorable points in places and is packed with interesting anecdotes, such as in the chapter ‘Someone died’ where Vernon shares the wisdom gained from consoling the bereaved in his previous work as priest, where the fine advice is rooted in his experience and richly illustrated with relevant stories from his life.

However, aside from a few well-observed sections, the book is a frustrating read. The problem isn’t that Vernon can’t find the right thing to say about his subject matter, but that many chapters don’t resolve the problem they seek to address, while others lack a discernible focus, or stray from discussing difficult situations. When Vernon’s advice is relevant, it is often unremarkable. A reader seeking genuine help is likely to be disappointed.

The main problem is the book’s failure to deliver its promised advice. For instance, the chapter ‘Ending relationships’, which addresses failing friendships, describes Nietzsche’s ruminations on the kinds of people who are good at making friends as well as Aristotle’s observations on spotting signs of a friendship that is in trouble. While that is certainly interesting, it is really all that the chapter has to offer, since it ends with the admonition to remember old friends graciously instead of any constructive points about what to say or do to get through the situation.

More of the same can be found in ‘Needing money’, where Vernon explains that asking for money is embarrassing because it reveals money’s ‘debasing’ nature. His advice is to offer money as a gift to friends so there is no implied sense of obligation that can corrupt the relationship. But he doesn’t stop there. He goes on to show why this advice itself is inadequate, since even a gift implies a debt of gratitude which may be repaid. So what is to be done now? The chapter ends right when a better answer is needed.

The book also includes chapters that don’t have a clear focus, leaving the reader to guess what situation the advice is intended for, while others don’t seem relevant to most people’s lives. For instance, ‘Taking exams’ observes how people react differently to exams, and then tells the story of John Stuart Mill’s rather extraordinary education. The wisdom Vernon draws from this is that a formal education is only ‘half an education’ since it must also work to cultivate feelings. In the end, it’s not terribly clear what problem the advice is supposed to remedy. Is the chapter a word of warning to people who study too hard? Is it consolation for those who resent formal education? Is it simply about a good story? While it’s true that taking an exam can be difficult, it’s not a difficult situation in the same way as confronting bigotry might be.

Then there is the inappropriately-titled ‘Wanting sex’, which confronts the curious ‘problem’ of how to refuse sex, expounding on the writings of the famous misanthrope Schopenhauer and his ‘persistently unsuccessful sex life’. But then is this an everyday problem? I always thought the issue was not getting enough sex, rather than having enough of it to turn down for the reasons cited (‘the photocopier is uncomfortable’).

In fact, it’s not clear that the best way to approach personal problems is through philosophy to begin with. It’s telling that, despite covering bread-and-butter philosophers like Plato, Aristotle, Nietzsche, Heidegger and Russell, it’s often not their best known ideas that are described but rather their open speculations that could be made by almost anyone. Perhaps this is because philosophers don’t really have any privileged insights into human nature that make them better able to navigate difficult situations than the rest of us. If they did, they probably would have led more exemplary personal lives instead of showing the kinds of human failings many of them are known for.

But if you’re looking to defuse a tense situation with an incisive comment, an appropriately-chosen maxim from William Ferraiolo’s Cynical Maxims and Marginalia may be just the thing. Inspired by the French nobleman François de La Rochefoucauld’s 17th-century collection, Maximes, Ferraiolo’s stated aim is to rekindle the ‘fading tradition of aphoristic meditations concerning the various absurdities that constitute the human enterprise’. The result is this refreshing collection of 637 numbered meditations, ranging from one to several sentences in length, loosely grouped around a common theme. Despite the disjointed nature of maxims, they are carefully arranged within each chapter so as to flow seamlessly. They may best be understood with a representative example: ‘Maxims are for the small and the inadequate. In other words, they are for us all’ (420).

The tone of the maxims is quite varied. Among the shorter ones are the self-deprecating: ‘An author produces but one masterwork. The rest is marginalia’ (120), or ‘I decline to reproduce. There is more than enough of me already’ (337); the religious: ‘Perhaps we have gone forth and multiplied enough’ (254), or ‘Blessed are the forgetful, for they shall be delivered from themselves’ (395); the optimistic: ‘The common good shall be secured as soon as it is available at the take-out window’ (77); the philosophical: ‘Skepticism is not exactly a theory – it is simply a refusal to ignore our limitations’ (589); and the sublime: ‘An entire novel is written for the sake of one or two lines. A whole life may be lived for the sake of a few moments’ (102).

A common subject is modernity and the current state of American society, politics and culture. While the more opinionated of these may alienate some readers, the humour and cool detachment in the writing go a long way toward remedying this. For instance, on the family: ‘We are now more dependent upon pharmaceuticals than we are upon the family. Drugs are, after all, more reliable’ (50); and on politics: ‘In a democracy, stupidity always holds the majority in every chamber of government. It is, after all, a representative system’ (72), or ‘Socialism is a system for nationalizing compassion so that individuals may be done with it’ (70).

There is an art to writing maxims that, when done with excellence, is reminiscent of good poetry. Taking the simple maxim, ‘Trust is always tinged with hope’ (492): it resonates true because it captures the anxiety and tension arising from the desperate wish for one’s expectations not to be dashed. The word tinged evokes the risk of betrayal, while the qualifier always serves to underscore the naive goodwill that trust requires.

In this way, the maxims are powerful and compelling because they ask us not to identify on the level of the author’s explanations of the world, but rather on the level of his personal intuitions. These intimate insights are enlightening because they expose the follies and unexamined assumptions of the author and the captivated reader, which is why they have a tendency for hyperbole and generalisations that don’t stand up to rational scrutiny. The only way fully to appreciate the maxims is to suspend one’s critical judgement. And it is this very subversive indulgence that makes them so enjoyable. In the right light, the following seems true of Cynical Maxims and Marginalia, a volume that is no doubt too short: ‘There are works that do not exactly end – they simply stop somewhere’ (637).