Couch potatoes

Paul Solotaroff's Group: Six People in Search of a Life is excellent reportage, but fails to ask serious questions of psychotherapy

I feel, therefore I am

Antonio Damasio makes himself up as he goes along. Every waking moment, he is engaged in the study of his identity. Beyond the core self - the man who absent-mindedly picks up the orange juice or steps around the furniture - is an autobiographical fiction; he is an actor in a drama he writes for himself.

Consumed by our dreams

Why did Walter Benjamin devote himself to The Arcades Project? Julian Roberts follows one of the great minds of the twentieth century through the shopping malls of 19th century Paris

Darwin’s Worms by Adam Philips

It is a time when the books pages are more interested in rounding up the year/century/millennium than assessing new books, but one notable exception has emerged over the past few weeks - Adam Phillips, psychotherapist, writer of elegant little treatises and unlikely media star.

Capsizing the cradle

Kate Kellaway wonders how Judith Rich Harris' own experiences of family life have shaped her account of child development in The Nurture Assumption.

Human nurture

"They [you-know-what], your mum and dad, they do not mean to but they do" having become probably the most common poetic epigraph of the late 20th century, it is pleasant to read a book which argues that this is not the case at all.

Worst of the brain teasers

With The Undiscovered Mind, Horgan returns to the consciousness debate to argue that even if there were cause to dream about a grand unified theory of consciousness, it is hard to see how the current mob of researchers could possibly deliver.