How to Live. What To Do.: In search of ourselves in life and literature (Hardback)

Josh Cohen's fascination with the struggle of being human is filled with curiosity and compassion. The rabbit holes he takes us down are thick with enlightening tales and thoughtful solutions for the battles in our minds. - Robin 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

Wonderful... a surprising and variously perceptive book about the forms of knowledge and solace that are available to us as long as we cultivate a sense of curiosity about ourselves, and other people. - Leo Robson, New Statesman

I loved it so much I rationed myself to a few pages a night to make it last through the long evenings of lockdown. It's compassionate, wise and thought-provoking- like having a gifted and sympathetic psychoanalyst at your side. By engaging with the problems of fictional characters, it returns us both to books we've loved and books we need to read. Above all, it raises important questions about human existence and challenges us all to lead richer, more examined lives. - Marcel Theroux

The vertiginous feeling I had when reading this book was because I found myself, with each new chapter, falling more and more into something familiar but strange: my own life.Josh Cohen never claims to know better than the rest of us how to live or what to do, yet his extraordinary capacity to shine a light on the barely-noticed details of our existences has an uncanny effect. Unlike those self-help books that promise to transform us, here is a book that, by reflecting our own lives back to us in ways we've not been able to imagine them before, probably does. - Devorah Baum

Josh Cohen is the new Erik Erikson with this excellent book. He elegantly puts together vignettes of his psychoanalytic work with patients, episodes from his own life, and reflections on novels to offer his personal account of the life-cycle. He carries his insights and his learning lightly, writing without technical terms or obscurity. He always gives the reader the impression that he is sharing his views with us, and invites us to have our own thoughts on the matter. This is book for anyone curious about and interested in emotional development. - Michael Brearley

By the end of this wonderful book, we have learned to read its title not as a prescription but as a set of questions. Neither novels nor psychoanalysis promise to finally answer those questions. Instead, they invite us to look and listen - and to live in a way that lets us keep asking. - TLS