Books for The Deep Thinker

How Shostakovich Changed My Mind

Stephen Johnson

Winner of the 2021 Rubery Book Award. BBC music broadcaster Stephen Johnson (who has Bipolar Disorder himself) explores the power of Shostakovich’s music during Stalin’s reign of terror, and writes of the extraordinary healing effect of music on the mind for sufferers of mental illness.

Epiphany

Each of the books in this collection reveals a moment of sudden, life-changing, epiphany.

Mentored by a Madman: The William Burroughs Experiment – Signed Copy

A. J. Lees

In this extraordinary memoir, neuroscientist Andrew Lees explains how William Burroughs, author of Naked Lunch and troubled drug addict, played an unlikely part in his medical career.

Mentored by a Madman: The William Burroughs Experiment

A. J. Lees

In this extraordinary memoir, neuroscientist Andrew Lees explains how William Burroughs, author of Naked Lunch and troubled drug addict, played an unlikely part in his medical career.

Portrait Inside My Head

Phillip Lopate

In this revealing collection of personal essays, renowned essayist, Phillip Lopate, shares his unique view on the big subjects of parenthood, marriage, sex, friendship, and ‘the nail parings of daily life’. At turns funny, tender, and searingly honest, he searches with a cool eye for that elusive truth about himself and the world.

Essays on the Self

Virginia Woolf

The essays in this collection are, of course, not merely concerned with the self. Woolf does also discuss the rights of women, the revolutions of modernity, the past, present and future of the novel. She is eloquent on social inequality and the agony of war.

Attention! A (Short) History

Joshua Cohen

A dazzling meditation on the philosophical, scientific, and historical roots of attention, an attempt to pin down this elusive state of being.

Things I Don’t Want To Know

Deborah Levy

Things I Don’t Want to Know is a unique response to George Orwell from one of our most vital contemporary writers. Taking Orwell’s famous list of motives for writing as the jumping-off point for a sequence of thrilling reflections on the writing life, this is a perfect companion not just to Orwell’s essay, but also to Levy’s own, essential oeuvre.

Junkspace with Running Room

Rem Koolhaas Hal Foster

In Junkspace, architect Rem Koolhaas itemised in delirious detail how our cities are being overwhelmed. His celebrated jeremiad is here updated and twinned with Running Room, a fresh response from architectural critic Hal Foster.

You and Me: The Neuroscience of Identity

Susan Greenfield

A fascinating look at the relationship between identity and neuroscience in the age of social media. Greenfield looks at the ways in which technology impacts our brains and sense of identity.

The Road to Apocalypse: The Extraordinary Journey of Lewis Way

Stanley Price Munro Price

In 1811 eccentric millionaire Lewis Way had an epiphany on the road to Exmouth. From that moment he devoted himself to one goal: the return of the Jews to the Holy Land, revealing a forgotten life story.

Mourning Diary

Roland Barthes