"Balancing acts," writes Adam Phillips, "are entertaining because they are risky, but there are situations in which it is more dangerous to keep your balance than to lose it." In these exhilarating and casually brilliant essays, the philosopher and psychoanalyst examines literature, fairy tales, works of art, and case studies to reveal the paradoxes inherent in our appetites and fears. How do we know when enough is enough? Are there times when too much is just right? Why is Cinderella's biggest problem not the prince but other women? What can Richard III's furious sense of his own helplessness tell us of our own desires? On Balance shows Phillips's bravura gift for linking disparate ideas and the dreamers that dreamed them into something beautiful, revelatory, and essential.
"A refreshing, invigorating experience...Adam Phillips is one of the richest and most rewarding essayists of our time."
Los Angeles Times
"Highly pragmatic...Phillips's authority as a writer comes in no small part from his own experience as a highly regarded therapist....Like a priest, he is concerned with damnation and salvation, under the secular names of sickness and cure."
Adam Kirsch, The Boston Globe
"Transformative...Phillips can tease out contradictions with extraordinary delicacy....He shows that pleasure and desire are not simple; they can be feared...and used to hide things we should really see."
