'Not where you want to be in life but frustrated by fluffy self-help books? The Motivated Mind could be the read you need...Dr Raj Persaud has produced a fascinating, intellectual essay on the secrets behind success and fulfillment. This book helps you gain real understanding of how your mind works and how, unwittingly, you may be sabotaging your happiness'

The proof of the pudding is in the eating, and Raj's direct application of his motivational theories to three case-studies on our programme was an unqualified success. The plan works!

An intimate, affecting memoir . . . Her passion for literature is contagious, and her struggle with postpartum depression and writer's block reinforces how carefully all of us must tread. Beautifully rendered, Shafak's Black Milk is an epic poem to women everywhere

The first - and still is the finest - literary dope fiend

It is one of the classics of 19th-century life writing and its influence is still felt

The original sensationalist, and the best druggy writer, is still Thomas De Quincey, whose Confessions of an English Opium Eater (1822) first mixed the now-familiar cocktail of despair, self-loathing and romance... De Quincey stands accused, by his own generation and many since, of glamorising addiction and corrupting the impressionable, a charge borne out by his influence on such writers as Poe and Baudelaire, the Symbolists, Decadents and Beats, and so on down to Will Self

Jesse Bering is the intellectual spawn of Helen Fisher and Oliver Sacks, and Why Is the Penis Shaped Like That? is brainy, informative, compassionate - and hilariously naughty.

One year, Joshua Foer is covering the US Memory Championships as a freelance journalist, the next he returns as a competitor - and wins it...How he pulled off this extraordinary feat forms the spine of this crisply entertaining book.

Combines erudite analysis, historical context, a mind-bending adventure and extremely suggestive sex - some of it involving Foer's grandmother.

A labyrinthine personal journey that explains how our author ended up in the finals of the US Memory Championship - a compelling story arc from sceptical journalist to dedicated participant. I can't remember when I last found a science book so intriguing.

[A] charming book...interwoven with informed exposition about the psychological science of memory.

A fascinating, engaging and very well-written book.

Addictive and fascinating...extraordinary. [Foer] attended the US Memory Championship as a journalist and returned the next year as a competitor and won...It is Foer's gifts as a teacher and a storyteller that make this book essential reading.

Take, for example, the emergence of Downing Street as a salon for intellectuals from around the world, and not only economists and political scientists. Under David Cameron-or, more accurately, Steve Hilton, the prime minister's most influential adviser-the thinkers invited to hold court there often have little to say about policy per se. Joshua Foer, a young American who has written an acclaimed book about how memory works, was a recent guest. Mr Hilton's rationale is that governments have more to learn from fields of research that investigate how humans behave, such as neuroscience and social psychology, than from conventional technocrats. There is now a policy team devoted to "behaviourial insight" in the Cabinet Office.

Foer's book is great fun and hugely readable, not least because the author is a likeable sort of Everyman-science nerd whom we want to become a memory champion. Always fascinating and frequently mind-boggling, Moonwalking with Einstein is a book worth remembering.

For anyone interested in economics, cognitive science, psychology, and, in short, human behavior, this is the book of the year. Before Malcolm Gladwell and Freakonomics, there was Daniel Kahneman who invented the field of behavior economics, won a Nobel...and now explains how we think and make choices. Here's an easy choice: read this

I will never think about thinking quite the same. [Thinking, Fast and Slow] is a monumental achievement

A terrific unpicking of human rationality and irrationality - could hardly have been published at a better moment. Kahnemann is the godfather of behavioural economics, and this distillation of a lifetime's thinking about why we make bad decisions - about everything from money to love - is full of brilliant anecdote and wisdom. It is Kahnemann's belief that anyone who thinks they know exactly what is going on hasn't understood the question; as such it's the perfect gift for opinionated family members everywhere.

The book I most want to be given is Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman. I'm a speedy thinker myself, so am hoping to be endorsed in that practice.

In this comprehensive presentation of a life's work, the world's most influential psychologist demonstrates that irrationality is in our bones, and we are not necessarily the worse for it

Selected by the New York Times as one of the 100 Notable Books of 2011

Wonderfully rich and insightful

A brilliant read

Essays true to psychoanalytic principles, but free from jargon; they have the quality of the best short stories.

Grosz is able to expand out creating universal themes and experiences that makes every chapter personally relevant to the reader. It is a fascinating process that challenges you to reflect honestly about your own experiences… Indeed this is both the perfect book for someone with no psychology background or someone who works in the area… I found this book extremely interesting… I would highly recommend to anyone wanting an interesting and fascinating social science read and it is a book you’ll remember long after reading.

Grosz’s vignettes are so brilliantly put together that they read like pieces of bare, illuminating fiction. . . utterly captivating

Marvellous… After reading [Grosz’s] absorbing accounts of his patients’ journeys you might feel that The Examined Life ought to be given out free at birth

Crystal-clear and completely magical…The Examined Life is a book full of troubles, but also of wonders

Engaging, frank, and with many penetrating insights. His short, succinct chapters have both the tension and the satisfaction of miniature detective or mystery stories

By turns edifying and moving…Grosz offers astute insights into the perplexities of everyday life

[Grosz's accounts] are shaped like short stories, but true and moving in ways that fiction cannot be […] distilled through long examination into finely crafted literary form…

Grosz’s message is always affirming…it is possible to change

Excellent… Every one of these case histories bears repeating. All offer worthwhile insights

Intelligent, human and deeply moving

'Grosz] writes lucidly and with sensitivity… sprinkled with wise reflections… A gem… highly recommended

[A] fine and moving book… It is a true literary work and a very modern one…

That rarest of pleasures: a book I loved, and could recommend to almost anyone

Enlightening…full of wisdom and insight

Beautifully unadorned writing... He paints a vivid portrait of his patients

A rare insight into the life of the psychoanalyst… succeeds in making complex behavioural issues accessible for any reader

Exquisitely written casebook

The suspense in each chapter is so expert that I had to double check that this wasn’t a work of fiction. Best of all, Grosz manages to give a jargon-free account of how psychoanalysis works

By turns edifying and moving… Grosz offers astute insights into the perplexities of everyday life

Grosz's vignettes are so brilliantly put together that they read like pieces of bare illuminating fiction... It is this combination of tenacious detective work, remarkable compassion and sheer, unending curiosity for the oddities of the human heart that makes these stories utterly captivating.

Brilliant…. Grosz is a superb writer, yes, but it is the stories his patients tell him that really make you marvel. An elegant, jargon-free expedition into the secret business of our minds written with such wisdom and kindness… After reading [Grosz’s] absorbing accounts of his patients’ journeys you might feel that The Examined Life out to be given out free at birth

A fine and moving book... The tact, patience and understatement, which are particular components of Grosz’s wisdom, remind the reader that this writer’s insights and empathy result from thousand of hours with patients. This book is not polemical literature… nor is it an academic work or a popular self-help book. It is a true literary work and a very modern one.

Crystal-clear and completely magical...The Examined Life is a book full of troubles, but also of wonders: it shows people trapped by their own mysterious impulses, searching for an escape hatch, and often finding it

Five star review - an intelligent, human and deeply moving book… Grosz is listening for the unspoken and the gaps in between. His book celebrates change and the triumphs and tragedies of humanity

Excellent… this book arrives like a box of chocolates. Thirty-one elegantly presented chapters which, when you bite into them, each reveals something sweet, rich or crunchy. Every one of these case histories bears repeating. All offer worthwhile insights.

Engaging, frank, and with many penetrating insights. His short, succinct chapters have both the tension and the satisfaction of miniature detective or mystery stories… A stimulating book.

Grosz writes lucidly and with sensitivity, treating his patients with respect. The cases are sprinkled with wise reflections... highly recommended

There are many sage lessons here, backed up by research where necessary…fascinating… Grosz writes lucidly and with sensitivity, treating his patients with respect. The cases are sprinkled with wise reflections…highly recommended

Intensely readable… As a reminder of the strangeness of human existence, the myriad ways we find of making ourselves unhappy and the perplexing resourcefulness of the unconscious mind, Grosz’s book is a worthwhile addition to the literature of the examined life.

Written with real elegance and a strong sense of structure… several chapters read like powerful short stories

Elegantly structured and written… Grosz’s book is intensely readable

Shaped like short stories, but true and moving in ways that fiction cannot be... Gradually accumulating through his book, Grosz provides, not a definition, but an enactment of the purpose of psychoanalysis, which is both modest and profound.

Grosz is an able writer, engaging, frank and with many penetrating insights. His short, succinct chapters have both the tension and the satisfaction of miniature detective or mystery stories… a stimulating book

[These] interpretations make fascinating reading, leave you marvelling at the ingenuity of the human subconscious. Grosz’s message is always affirming: if a person can work out what it is that’s driving them, it is possible to change

Grosz’s narrative is by turns edifying and moving...tempered by his engaging prose and moments of humour

I couldn't put this down—I read about other people, but learned about myself at the same time. Real stories can be so much more fascinating than fictional ones, especially with Stephen Grosz. No preaching, no clichés—just wisdom.

Modest and profound