In many places there is a choice between a compounded form and a more 'naturalisma' usage. For example sendiuloj versus ateistoj, or ne-religia versus sekulara, foja versus sporada.

Good thoughts, sudanglo. I took a mixture of both approaches -- for example, I wrote "sekulara" instead of "nereligia" because "religio" was already employed in the same sentence. But in other cases, I stuck to the more traditional vocabulary. In general, I prefer to strike a balance between the two approaches instead of leaning heavily towards one or the other. Yes, you can theoretically express almost any concept using Zamenhof's initial dictionary of ~900 roots, but at the expense of lexical variety. On the other side, cramming sentences full of neologismoj strikes me as being counterproductive to Esperanto's ideals.

Also, a question: can we offer our own texts for translation in this thread, or would it be more appropriate to start a new thread for those, so things don't get unwieldy? For instance, there are several passages in Oscar Wilde's writings that are giving me headaches and I'd like to see how veteran Esperantists tackle them.

(BTW, this philosopher seems rather tame by modern standards. I am familiar with a broad range of modern philosophic positions and de Botton does not appear to be anywhere near the extreme. Remember that atheism is very common among most Western philosophers today.)

de Botton does not appear to be anywhere near the extreme

Yes, de Botton is trying to build bridges.

The whole thrust of the book is, what lessons can we draw from religions whilst at the same time rejecting the supernatural. This contrasts with the position of many atheists, who not being able to tolerate what they feel is mumbo-jumbo then reject religion completely, throwing the baby out with the bath water so to speak.

Probably less confusing to pop your translation passages in a new thread IMHO.