THE PANIC YEARS and HOW TO LIVE. WHAT TO DO. published today

Congratulations to Nell Frizzell and Josh Cohen!

What can Alice in Wonderland teach us about childhood? Could reading Conversations with Friends guide us through first love? Does Esther Greenwood’s glittering success and subsequent collapse in The Bell Jar help us understand ambition? And, finally, what can we learn about death from Virginia Woolf?

Literature matters. Not only does it provide escapism and entertainment, but it also holds a mirror up to our lives to show us aspects of ourselves we may not have seen or understood. From jealousy to grief, fierce love to deep hatred, our inner lives become both stranger and more familiar when we explore them through fiction.

Josh Cohen, a psychoanalyst and Professor of Modern Literary Theory, delves deep into the inner lives of the most memorable and vivid characters in literature. His analysis of figures such as Jay Gatsby and Mrs Dalloway offers insights into the greatest questions about the human experience, ones that we can all learn from. He walks us through the different stages of existence, from childhood to old age, showing that literature is much more than a refuge from the banality and rigour of everyday life – through the experiences of its characters, it can show us ways to be wiser, more open and more self-aware.

‘Filled with curiosity and compassion…enlightening tales and thoughtful solutions for the battles in our minds.’ - Robert Ince
 
'Deftly linking literature and clinical stories Josh Cohen invites us into the ways we humans deal with inner conflicts, voids, losses, insecurities and abandonments. And he invites us to see how conflict - with its steps forward, to the side and back are part of the struggle to live a life as fully and as engaged as we can.' - Susie Orbach
 

THE PANIC YEARS by Nell Frizzell - Transworld (UK) and Flatiron (US)

An urgent, candid call for conversation about the years between adolescence and menopause where every decision a woman makes has a ticking clock in the background, Frizzell’s provocative book is essential reading for all.

The panic years can hit at any time but they are most commonly triggered somewhere between the ages of twenty-five and forty. During this time, every decision a woman makes - from postcode to partner, friends to family, work to weekends - will be impacted by the urgency of the one decision with a deadline, the one decision that is impossible to take back: whether or not to have a baby.

But how to stay sane in such a maddening time?
How to understand who you are and what you might want from life?
How to know if you're making the right decisions?

Raw, hilarious and beguilingly honest, Nell Frizzell's account of her panic years is both an arm around the shoulder and a campaign to start a conversation. This affects us all - women, men, mothers, children, partners, friends, colleagues - so it's time we started talking about it with a little more candour.

'As informative as it is poetic' Dolly Alderton
'Smart and perceptive...a must read for 2021' Stylist
'Wonderful... touching, helpful and enlightening' Sara Pascoe

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