Love's Executioner

Oct 10, 2024 9:21 AM

Author:Irvin D. Yalom

Love's Executioner

Love's Executioner offers us the humane and extraordinary insight of renowned psychiatrist Irvin D. Yalom into the lives of ten of his patients - and through them into the minds of us all

Why was Saul tormented by three unopened letters from Stockholm? What made Thelma spend her whole life raking over a long-past love affair? How did Carlos's macho fantasies help him deal with terminal cancer?

In this engrossing book, Irvin Yalom gives detailed and deeply affecting accounts of his work with these and seven other patients. Deep down, all of them were suffering from the basic human anxieties - isolation, fear of death or freedom, a sense of the meaninglessness of life - that none of us can escape completely. And yet, as the case histories make touchingly clear, it is only by facing such anxieties head on that we can hope to come to terms with them and develop. Throughout, Dr Jalom remains refreshingly frank about his own errors and prejudices; his book provides a rare glimpse into the consulting room of a master therapist.

'Dr Yalom demonstrates once again that in the right hands, the stuff of therapy has the interest of the richest and most inventive fiction' Eva Hoffman, New York Times

'These remarkably moving and instructive tales of the psychiatric encounter bring the reader into novel territories of the mind - and the landscape is truly unforgettable' Maggie Scarf

'Love's Executioner is one of those rare books that suggests both the mystery and the poetry of the psychotherapeutic process. The best therapists are at least partly poets. With this riveting and beautifully written book, Irvin Yalom has joined their ranks' Erica Jong

'Dr Yalom offers a valuable insight into the delicate process of therapy' Sunday Telegraph

'Dr Yalom is unusually honest, both with his patients and about himself' Anthony Storr

'Yalom is a gifted storyteller, and from the sound of these tales, a no-less-gifted psychotherapist' Los Angeles Times

Reviews

Dr Yalom demonstrates once again that in the right hands, the stuff of therapy has the interest of the richest and most inventive fiction

—— Eva Hoffman , New York Times

These remarkably moving and instructive tales of the psychiatric encounter bring the reader into novel territories of the mind - and the landscape is truly unforgettable

—— Maggie Scarf

Love's Executioner is one of those rare books that suggests both the mystery and the poetry of the psychotherapeutic process. The best therapists are at least partly poets. With this riveting and beautifully written book, Irvin Yalom has joined their ranks

—— Erica Jong

Inspired ... He writes with the narrative wit of O. Henry and the earthy humor of Isaac Bashevis Singer

—— San Francisco Chronicle

Dr Yalom offers a valuable insight into the delicate process of therapy

—— Sunday Telegraph

Irvin Yalom writes like an angel about the devils that besiege us

—— Rollo May

These stories are wonderful. They make us realize that within every human being lie the pain and the beauty that make life worthwhile

—— Bernie S. Siegel

Dr Yalom is unusually honest, both with his patients and about himself

—— Anthony Storr

Yalom is a gifted storyteller, and from the sound of these tales, a no-less-gifted psychotherapist

—— Los Angeles Times

This is an impressive transformation of clinical experience into literature. Dr Yalom's case histories are more gripping than 98 percent of the fiction published today, and he has gone to amazing lengths of honesty to depict himself as a realistic flesh-and-blood character: funny, flawed, perverse, and, above all, understanding

—— Phillip Lopate

I loved Love's Executioner. Dr Yalom has learned something that fiction writers learned years ago - that people's mistakes are a lot more interesting than their triumphs

—— Joanne Greenberg

An informative history of the English relationship with trees

—— Arminta Wallace , Irish Times

Elegant and heartfelt… Part eco-memoir, part monograph, wholly engrossing

—— Daily Telegraph

Fantastic

—— Neil Denny, Little Atoms

A truly compelling book, savage and sparkling by turns

—— Kathryn Hughes , Mail on Sunday

Alan Root’s overflowing life as a dedicated, adventurous film-maker and naturalist is almost the story of wild East Africa itself in those glorious and tragic years surrounding the advent of political independence…a fresh, honest, often moving (and humorous) account, a terrific contribution to the literature

—— Peter Matthiessen

Required reading for anyone who wants to experience the joys and sorrows of conservation in today's Africa

—— Wilbur Smith

Root’s enthralling memoir…is the best true-life adventure story to come out of Africa for years

—— Sunday Telegraph

His is a funny, harrowing, beautifully written love letter to Africa

—— Christopher Hart , Sunday Times

In this captivating memoir [Root] documents his brushes in the bush and his passion for wildlife

—— Big Issue in the North

Oscar-nominated filmmaker Root has written the most extraordinary love letter to Africa – packed with drama and knowledge, tragedy and hope... A completely gripping and important study of this complex and disappearing natural environment

—— Sally Morris , Daily Mail

His is an extraordinary story laced with tragedy

—— Mail on Sunday

[Root's] life story, vividly related here, is crammed with incident and adventure. Curious, creative and fearless, he has diced with death on numerous occasions and been mauled several times in his efforts to capture the daily lives of everything from silver-back gorillas to leopards in the wild on film. A gripping account of a life well lived

—— Good Book Guide

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