'A personal investigation, a philosophical inquiry, and a pith, compacted consideration of how both psychiatry and neurology have evolved in the last two centuries...She brings both knowledge and an artist's insight to her discussion of memory, language, personal identity. Readers of Oliver Sacks will rate this book highly.' -- Hilary Mantel, Guardian 'She has an enviable ability to digest and reframe her discoveries into clear, accessible prose...a bracing shower -- vigorous and stimulating -- in which the reader can feel the power of ideas, as it were, soaking into the skin.' -- Melanie McGrath, Sunday Telegraph 'She thinks her way through complex subject matter with the effortless clarity of a poised and sceptical outsider who has little time for nonsense or the blithe reductionist certainties of supposed experts...The result is a short book with an encyclopaedic breadth' -- Lisa Appignanesi, Independent 'Fascinating...what gives the book its originality is that she wavers on the edge of the various disciplines, preferring her own imaginative, deeply personal reflections to the potential certainty that might be offered by doctors...Although a desire for clear-cut answers is understandable, Hustvedt suggests that this is often far from possible. And she leaves the reader thinking about his or her own bouts of illness in a thoroughly fresh way.' -- Lorna Bradbury, Daily Telegraph 'Provocative but often funny, encyclopedic but down to earth...It brings together an extraordinary double story: that of Hustvedt's own odyssey of discovery, and of that point where brain and mind, neurology and psychiatry, come together in the realm of neuropsychoanalysis. The odyssey has not cured her, nor led to a conclusion -- but Hustvedt's erudite book deepens one's wonder about the relation of body and mind.' -- Oliver Sacks

Siri Hustvedt is the author of four novels, THE BLINDFOLD, THE ENCHANTMENT OF LILY DAHL, WHAT I LOVED and THE SORROWS OF AN AMERICAN, as well as a poetry collection, Reading to You, and three collections of essays, Yonder, Mysteries of the Rectangle: Essays on Painting and A PLEA FOR EROS. Born and raised in Minnesota, she now lives in Brooklyn with her husband, Paul Auster.