A. C. Grayling's new book is Friendship.From his Q & A at the Yale University Press blog:
Yale University Press: How important is friendship in the twenty-first century?--Marshal Zeringue
A.C. Grayling: Friendship has always been central to human existence, and although it is no longer a matter of leaguing together to bring down a woolly mammoth, it remains an indispensable psychological and social platform for good lives. In some ways the new media of communication and social networking has overextended the notion of “friendship” to a shallow simulacrum to that relationship, but they also make it possible for people to be together in new ways, and to nourish the bonds in which friendship consists.
YUP: Can friendship ever be bad for us?
ACG: It is all too possible to have toxic friends; it too often happens that people can do unwise or bad things in the name of friendship; having the wrong people as friends can be destructive; so yes—friendship can be bad for us. But it is far more often...[read on]