Side effects are things we do not intend. And, in this collection of essays, Adam Phillips examines how the things we don�t mean, or mean perhaps to forget, prove to be those that are often most telling about our unconscious lives. Phillips also intends for us to question our conscious pursuit of happiness, explaining that, in refusing to admit and explore life�s down sides, we can only be living half lives. And through his unique and incisive exploration of literature, Phillips also demonstrates what the great novelists have to tell us about ourselves. Both illuminating and fascinating on literature as well as life, Side Effects maps our edges as human beings, and, in doing so, goes some way to helping give shape to our lives.

"The funniest American novel since Sam Lipsyte's The Ask ." - Village Voice "A ribald chronicle of [a] 60-something Manhattan accountant, who's come to Rio de Janeiro as a sex tourist. [A] fever dream of a novel." - New York Times Book Review "Levy delivers a visceral blend of hilarious satire and study in human sexuality, taking us on a deviant tour of Rio." - Interview Magazine I have come to regard almost everything that happens in human life as a form of therapy. So muses Kenny Cantor, always dapper in his seersucker suit from the Brooks Brothers 346 collection. Kenny is a CPA, amateur psychoanalyst, and sex-tourist vacationing in Rio when he gets waylaid at a psychoanalytic conference. What ensues is a provocative journey that merges sex and psychoanalysis through Rio's tawdry netherworld of Susan Sontag-quoting denizens as only an incendiary voice like Francis Levy could imagine. Francis Levy is the author of Erotomania: A Romance , a Queerty.com Top 10 Book of 2008 and an Inland Empire Weekly Standout Book of 2008. His short stories, criticism, humor, and poetry have appeared in The New York Times , The Washington Post , The New Republic , The Village Voice , and many others.

In her new book, Kim Chernin, author of The Obsession and The Hungry Self, takes us inside the mind of the psychoanalytic listener and her clients as few other writers have done. In an almost novelistic fasion she recalls her analysis with three very different analysts and how they shaped her analytic work with their distinctive personalities. She decides to go back to graduate school for a degree in clinical psychology and works with a major figure in the field, discussing with him the life stories of her own clients.

Chernin takes us inside the mind of the psychoanalyst and her patients as few other books have done. In an almost novelistic fashion, she recalls her own analysis with three very different analysts (1967-71, 1972-83, and 1984-92) and how she grew as an individual through her work with them. It is a rare act of self-disclosure that is both moving and revelatory. A moving, provocative, and eminently readable book that raises crucial questions for those concerned with psychoanalysis and self-knowledge. A compelling recounting of the rewards and shortcomings of psychoanalysis . . . rich with discovery.

This book presents an intriguing and novel Freudian overview of all Daniel Defoe's major works by confronting various psychoanalytic hypotheses regarding Defoe. It is an original, well-documented, and compelling cross-disciplinary approach to identity issues and creative genius of Defoe.