Phillips is one of the finest prose stylists at work in the language, an Emerson for our time
Reading Phillips, you may be amused, vexed, dazzled. But the one thing you will never be is bored
Observer
"Phillipsian" would evoke a vivid, paradoxical style that led you to think that you had picked up an idea by the head, only to find you were holding it by the tail
Guardian
He is perhaps single-handedly continuing the tradition of the world's best essayists
Observer
Phillips radiates infectious charm. The brew of gaiety, compassion, exuberance and idealism is heady and disarming
Sunday Times
A selection of the most popular and relevant essays from Adam Phillips, the man New Yorker called 'Britain's foremost psychoanalytic writer'
'Phillips's prose is poetic in the best sense: it is muscular, resonant, and thrums with a dark music that is all its own' John Banville
In the twenty essays gathered here, ranging across his entire oeuvre, psychoanalyst Adam Phillips offers a vivid introduction to his discipline as well as his own unique thinking. Investigating subjects as diverse as desire, family, happiness, tickling, forgetting and even boredom, Phillips proves himself to be not only one of our most engaging writers but also a fascinating and provocative guide to our obsessions as human beings.