How We Are - Couverture souple

Deary, Vincent

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 0374535965 ISBN 13 : 9780374535964

Editeur : Farrar Straus & Giroux, 2016

Synopsis

We live in small worlds...

How We Are is an astonishing debut and the first part of the monumental How to Live trilogy, a profound and ambitious work that gets to the heart of what it means to be human: how we are, how we break, and how we mend.

In Book One, How We Are, we explore the power of habit and the difficulty of change. As Vincent Deary shows us, we live most of our lives automatically, in small worlds of comfortable routine--what he calls Act One. Conscious change requires deliberate effort, so for the most part we avoid it. But inevitably, from within or without, something comes along to disturb our small worlds--some News from Elsewhere. And, with reluctance, we begin the work of adjustment: Act Two.

Over decades of psychotherapeutic work, Deary has witnessed the theater of change--how ordinary people get stuck, struggle with new circumstances, and finally transform for the better. He is keenly aware that novelists, poets, philosophers, and theologians have grappled with these experiences for far longer than psychologists. Drawing on his own personal experience and a staggering range of literary, philosophical, and cultural sources, Deary has produced a mesmerizing and universal portrait of the human condition.

Part psychologist, part philosopher, part novelist, Deary helps us to see how we can resist being habit machines and make our acts and our lives more fully our own.

A propos du livre

Présentation de l'éditeur

We live in small worlds. An astonishing literary debut and the first book in the monumental How To Live trilogy, How We Are explores the power of habit and the difficulty of change. A story told in three parts, this profound and ambitious trilogy gets right to the heart of what it means to be human: how we work, how we break, and how we mend.As Vincent Deary shows us, we live most of our lives automatically, in small worlds of more or less comfortable routine - what he calls Act One. Conscious change requires deliberate effort, and so, for the most part, we avoid it. But inevitably, from within or without, something will come along to disturb our small worlds - some News From Elsewhere. And with ingrained reluctance, we begin the work of adjustment: Act Two. Over decades of psychotherapeutic work, Deary has been a witness to the theatre of change - the way that ordinary people get stuck, struggle with new circumstances, and eventually transform their lives and get better. He is also keenly aware that novelists, poets, philosophers and theologians have grappled with these experiences for far longer than psychologists have. Drawing on his own personal experience, and a staggering range of literary, philosophical and cultural sources, Deary has produced a mesmerizing and universal portrait of the human condition. Part psychologist, part philosopher, part novelist, Deary helps us to see how we can resist being mere habit machines, and make our acts and our lives more fully our own.Vincent Deary is a health psychologist at Northumbria University. This, his first book, is part one of the How To Live trilogy, and will be followed by How We Break (book 2) and How We Mend (book 3).

Revue de presse

This is a book that gets your mind whizzing off in lots of directions... It's crammed with ideas. It makes your head spin, in a good way. (William Leith Spectator)

Exhilarating... a lyrical, consoling exploration... It takes guts to recognise that change is called for, and more to follow it through. This book - so long as you don't read it on autopilot - should help (Oliver Burkeman The Guardian)

Fascinating, profound, wonderfully well-observed... [How We Are] could change lives (Bel Mooney The Daily Mail)

The one self-help book that's actually worth reading (Spectator)

An honest, provisional, self-searching voice and a vision rich in images and characters' stories... A trilogy entitled How To Live might easily find itself stranded in the self-help sections of the bookshops. To open the first volume, however, is to realise that this would be an injustice and that any number of other shelves could claim it for themselves (Financial Times)

'Are you living the life you want to lead?' That was the question that one 40-year-old NHS psychotherapist answered by changing his own life in order to write a book that could change yours (Carole Cadwalladr Observer)

A guidebook for humans (The Journal)

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Farrar Straus & Giroux
• Date d'édition: 2016
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 0374535965
• ISBN 13: 9780374535964
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 261
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: non disponible