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- There's also Michel de Montaigne's essays from the 1500's On Solitude.[1]
More recently, there are books like The Lonely Crowd from the 1960's, [2] and Anthony Storr's Solitude, from the 1980's[3]
Of course, for thousands of years, spending time in solitude has been greatly valued for religious reasons, for "building character", for coming in touch with oneself, or for creative purposes. On the other hand, modern life, and more recently the media (even before social media) have been criticized for alienating people from themselves and from each other.
[1] - http://www.hermitary.com/solitude/montaigne.html
[2] - https://www.amazon.com/Lonely-Crowd-Changing-Character-Paper...
[3] - https://www.amazon.com/Solitude-Return-Self-Anthony-Storr/dp...
- I am not aware of any one book which will teach you "How to love and live in Solitude":-) But the domain of Philosophy shows you the importance of "turning inward", "resting in oneself" and in general "living apart from the ceaseless and inane activity of the world".
The Ancient Hindu, Buddhist and Greek philosophical texts are the forerunners. The concept of "Renunciation"(Sanskrit: Sannyasa) under the Vedanta school in Hinduism is worth studying. One excellent and succinct text is the "Ashtavakra Gita" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashtavakra_Gita). There are plenty more Hindu and Buddhist texts on the subject.
The Greek schools, in particular Stoicism; were popularized by the Romans. Here you have the usual suspects i.e. the works of Seneca, Cicero, Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius.
Finally, the Essays of Michel De Montaigne contain one "On Solitude" (https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3600/3600-h/3600-h.htm#link2...) which has been published as a book under "Penguin Great Ideas" series; See https://www.amazon.com/Solitude-Penguin-Great-Ideas/dp/01413...
PS: I believe some of the Christian theologians/philosophers (St. Augustine?) have also written something on the subject though i don't know much about those works.
