Daniel Smith – författare

In the insightful narrative tradition of Oliver Sacks, Monkey Mind is an uplifting, smart, and very funny memoir of life with anxiety—America’s most common psychological complaint.

We all think we know what being anxious feels like—it is the instinct that made us run from wolves in the prehistoric age and pushes us to perform in the modern one—but for forty million American adults, anxiety is an insidious condition that defines daily life. Yet no popular memoir has been written about that experience until now. Aaron Beck, the most influential doctor in modern psychotherapy, says that “Monkey Mind does for anxiety what William Styron’s Darkness Visible did for depression.”

In Monkey Mind, Daniel Smith brilliantly articulates what it is like to live with anxiety, defanging the disease with humor, traveling through its demonic layers, evocatively expressing both its painful internal coherence and its absurdities. He also draws on its most storied sufferers to trace anxiety’s intellectual history and its influence on our time. Here, finally, comes relief and recognition to millions of people who have wanted someone to put into words what they and their loved ones feel.

Calling all royalists, put your regal knowledge to the test with this fun and fascinating collection of quizzes.Do you know the full names of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge''s three children? Or Queen Elizabeth''s rumoured favourite tipple? Which royal has his toothpaste squeezed for him every morning, and whose recent decision to take ''a leap of faith'' has caused ripples around the world? Put your loyalty and knowledge to the test with this charming miscellany that celebrates kings and queens from 1066 to the present day. A delightful tour of the British monarchy, from joyful royal weddings to tabloid-grabbing scandals, the boozy diet of James I''s elephant to Queen Elizabeth II''s favourite nail polish colour. A treasure trove of quirky facts and fascinating trivia, readers will discover hours of fun with this selection of achievable quizzes. Answers are included at the back of the book.

Tender, moving, heartfelt and warm (and sporadically scandalous and outrageous too), these are the private messages between people in love. Yet they are also correspondence between the rulers of nations. From Henry VIII''s lovelorn notes to Anne Boleyn and George IV''s impassioned notes to his secret wife, to Queen Victoria''s tender letters to Prince Albert and Edward VIII''s extraordinary correspondence with Wallis Simpson - these letters depict romantic love from its budding passion to the comfort and understanding of a long union (and occasionally beyond to resentment and recrimination), all set against the background of great affairs of state, wars and the strictures of royal duty.Here is a chance to glimpse behind the pomp and ceremony, the carefully curated images of royal splendour and decorum, to see the passions, hopes, jealousies and loneliness of kings and queens throughout history. By turns tender, moving, heartfelt and warm (and sporadically scandalous and outrageous too), these are the private messages between people in love. Yet they are also correspondence between the rulers of nations, whose actions (and passions) changed the course of history, for good and bad.This morning I received your dear, dear letter of the 21st. How happy do you make me with your love! Oh! my Angel Albert, I am quite enchanted with it! I do not deserve such love! Never, never did I think I could be loved so much. Queen Victoria to Prince Albert (28 November 1839)