Edward F. Mooney is Professor Emeritus in Religion and Philosophy at Syracuse University, USA. He is the author of Excursions with Thoreau: Philosophy, Poetry, Religion (Bloomsbury 2015) and nine other books, including Lost Intimacy in American Thought (Bloomsbury. 2009), and On Søren Kierkegaard: Dialogue, Polemic, Lost Intimacy and Time (2007). His work has been translated into French, Japanese, Hebrew, and Portuguese.

Mooney renders the difficulties of Kierkegaard readily accessible, and numerous chapters make effective primers for its various thinkers. [This book] makes for compelling and engaging reading.

• Acknowledgments Preface 1. Passionate Speech: Improvisations in the Disorders of Desire 2. The Very Tang of Life: Lyrical Jesting in Kierkegaard's Postscript Title 3. Existentialism: Hardly Navel-Gazing4. Henry Bugbee, Religious Philosopher 5. Melville: What Philosophers Learn at Sea 6. Where is God?: Ahab at Sea 7. Intimate Communions 8. Who is Kierkegaard?9. Kierkegaard, Seduction, and Circus Identity10. Difficult Faith and Living Well 11. Faith Can't Be Self-Deceptive12. Nurturing Love13. Socrates: Of Woman Born 14. Literature, Philosophy, and Existential ContributionsEpilogue: Truths in the Trenches NotesBibliography Index