The Examined Life

How We Lose and Find Ourselves

Stephen Grosz

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English

Arrow
03 March 2014

Prose: non-fiction; Psychology; Psychoanalytical theory (Freudian psychology)

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)
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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.

By: Stephen Grosz
Imprint: Arrow
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 196mm, Width: 128mm, Spine: 22mm
Weight: 180g
ISBN: 9780099549031
ISBN 10: 0099549034
Pages: 240
Publication Date: 03 March 2014
Audience: General/trade , College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , ELT Advanced , Primary
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

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

Reviews for The Examined Life: How We Lose and Find Ourselves

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 Grosz's couch -- James McConnachie The Sunday Times Books of the Year Grosz's vignettes are so brilliantly put together that they read like pieces of bare, illuminating fiction... utterly captivating -- Robert Collins Sunday Times Marvellous. After reading [Grosz's] absorbing accounts of his patients' journeys you might feel that The Examined Life ought to be given out free at birth -- Melissa Katsoulis The Times Crystal-clear and completely magical.The Examined Life is a book full of troubles, but also of wonders -- Craig Brown Mail on Sunday