The best book ever on depression. Andrew Solomon explains everything with a sharp, scientific clarity.

The history, treatment and even politics of depression are thoroughly covered… Solomon’s brutal honesty makes this the best account of depression I have ever read.

A mesmerising journey... magnificent

Extraordinary and redeeming... A work of great charm and individuality but also of impressive scholarship

A lodestone work

Few books are as powerful, as controversial or, at times, as wryly humorous... Poised to become a classic of our time: a key text for a generation that has depression at its core

Fascinating and warm-hearted... Compelling, wide-ranging, open-minded, useful, a testimony of the mind's power to overcome the most formidable obstacles and that offers hope to us all

A groundbreaking book... Eloquently impassioned, exhaustive

Damasio makes a grand transition from higher-brain views of emotions to deeply evolutionary, lower-brain contributions to emotional, sensory and homeostatic experiences. He affirms that the roots of consciousness are affective and shared by our fellow animals. Damasio's creative vision leads relentlessly toward a natural understanding of the very font of being

Lucid, elegantly written, and punctuated by humour... This is an exciting book by a wonderful thinker