The Examined Life: How We Lose and Find Ourselves

(Paperback)

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Longlisted for the Guardian first book award, a Sunday Times bestseller and Radio 4 Book of the Week. 'Marvellous' (The Times), 'Excellent' (Guardian), 'Completely magical' (Mail on Sunday) **SUNDAY TIMES BESTELLER** This book is about learning to live. Echoing Socrates' statement that the unexamined life not worth living, psychoanalyst Stephen Grosz draws on his twenty-five years of work and more than 50,000 hours of conversations to form a collection of beautifully rendered tales that illuminate the human experience. These are stories about everyday lives- from a woman who finds herself daydreaming as she returns home from a business trip to a young man loses his wallet, to the more extreme examples- the patient who points an unloaded gun at a police officer and the compulsive liar who convinces his wife he's dying of cancer. The resulting journey will spark new ideas about who we are and why we do what we do. 'This moving book will make the reader think of Freud's keenly observed and literary-minded case studies...piercing chapters that read like a combination of Chekhov and Oliver Sacks' New York Times 'Grosz is a superb storyteller and tells lots of his patients' stories with sensitivity, but also with great acuity. You might keep thinking you recognise things about people you know' Evening Standard.

Reviews

I was enthralled profound and moving, packed large ideas into a slim volume -- Lucy Lethbridge * Observer Books of the Year *
With deceptive simplicity and gentle wisdom, Grosz teases out a lesson or chases down a fugitive insight. I have distrusted psychoanalysis for years, but I would leap onto Groszs couch -- James McConnachie * The Sunday Times Books of the Year *
This moving book of patient portraits by the psychoanalyst Stephen Grosz will make the reader think of Freuds keenly observed and literary-minded case studies. Writing with sympathy and insight, Mr Grosz distils 25 years of work into a series of slim, piercing chapters that read like a combination of Chekhov and Oliver Sacks -- Michiko Kakutani * New York Times *
The success of The Examined Life by the psychoanalyst Stephen Grosz has, I think, relatively little to do with his clinical know-how; it rests, as Freud's did, on his story-telling abilities -- Rachel Cooke * Observer *
Grosz is a superb storyteller and tells lots of his patients' stories with sensitivity, but also with great acuity. You might keep thinking you recognise things about people you know -- William Leith * Evening Standard *

Author Bio

Stephen Grosz is a practicing psychoanalyst - he has worked with patients for more than twenty-five years. Born in America, he was educated at the University of California, Berkeley, and at Oxford University, and now lives in London. The Examined Life has been translated into more than twenty languages and was longlisted for the Guardian First Book Award. www.stephengrosz.com