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The Examined Life
- Author
- Stephen Grosz
- Narrator
- Peter Marinker
- Publisher
- Random House
- Publish Date
- 24 August 2023
- Run Time
- 5 hours 21 minutes
- Format
- Audiobook
What to expect
**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.
'A captivating journey... These are universal themes, insights into an emotional world we inhabit, often with equal difficulty. A wonderful book' Sunday Times
'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
©2013 Stephen Grosz (P)2023 Penguin Audio
Critics Review
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I was enthralled… profound and moving, packed large ideas into a slim volume
Observer Books of the Year
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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
The Sunday Times Books of the Year
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This moving book of patient portraits by the psychoanalyst Stephen Grosz will make the reader think of Freud’s 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
New York Times
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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
Observer
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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
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A wonderful example of a book that provides a safe space that can be used as a base to explore the less safe
Guardian
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Riveting... Grosz is adept at uncovering the little lies we tell ourselves and he's very perceptive about the potentially positive effects of bad experiences
Daily Telegraph
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Because of [Grosz's] skill at getting to the heart of the matter, we forget the distance separating us and become quickly involved in the lives of those he discusses
Mail on Sunday
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Absolutely fascinating. You’ll be amateur psychoanalysing yourself and everyone you know
Independent on Sunday
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It made me stop and think, and it has stayed with me. 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
Scotsman
User Reviews
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Details
- Author
- Stephen Grosz
- Narrator
- Peter Marinker
- Duration
- 5 hours 21 minutes
- Release Date
- 24 August 2023
- ISBN
- 9781529928624
- Format
- Audiobook
- Publisher
- Random House
- Genre
- Essays, Psychoanalytical and Freudian psychology, Applied psychology, Popular psychology
Synopsis
**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.'A captivating journey... These are universal themes, insights into an emotional world we inhabit, often with equal difficulty. A wonderful book' Sunday Times'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©2013 Stephen Grosz (P)2023 Penguin Audio
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