Anxiety once paralyzed Daniel Smith over a
roast beef sandwich, convincing him that a choice between ketchup and
barbeque sauce was as dire as that between life and death. It has caused
him to chew his cuticles until they bled, wear sweat pads in his
armpits, and confess his sexual problems to his psychotherapist mother.
It has dogged his days, threatened his sanity, and ruined his
relationships.
In Monkey Mind, Smith articulates what it is like to live with anxiety, defanging the disease with humor, traveling through its demonic layers, and evocatively expressing its self-destructive absurdities and painful internal coherence. With honesty and wit, he exposes anxiety as a pudgy, weak-willed wizard behind a curtain of dread and tames what has always seemed to him, and to the tens of millions of others who suffer from anxiety, a terrible affliction.
What's being said about Monkey Mind:
“I read Monkey Mind with admiration for its bravery and clarity. Daniel Smith’s anxiety is matched by a wonderful sense of the comic, and it is this which makes Monkey Mind not only a dark, pain-filled book but a hilariously funny one, too. I broke out into explosive laughter again and again.” —Oliver Sacks, bestselling author of The Mind’s Eye and Musicophilia
“Monkey Mind does for anxiety what William Styron’s Darkness Visible did for depression.” —Aaron T. Beck, father of cognitive therapy
“I don’t know Daniel Smith, but I do want to give him a hug. His book is so bracingly honest, so hilarious, so sharp, it’s clear there’s one thing he doesn’t have to be anxious about: Whether or not he’s a great writer.” —A.J. Jacobs, author of Drop Dead Healthy and The Year of Living Biblically
“You don’t need a Jewish mother, or a profound sweating problem, to feel Daniel Smith’s pain in Monkey Mind. His memoir treats what must be the essential ailment of our time — anxiety — and it does so with wisdom, honesty, and the kind of belly laughs that can only come from troubles transformed.” —Chad Harbach, author of The Art of Fielding
In Monkey Mind, Smith articulates what it is like to live with anxiety, defanging the disease with humor, traveling through its demonic layers, and evocatively expressing its self-destructive absurdities and painful internal coherence. With honesty and wit, he exposes anxiety as a pudgy, weak-willed wizard behind a curtain of dread and tames what has always seemed to him, and to the tens of millions of others who suffer from anxiety, a terrible affliction.
What's being said about Monkey Mind:
“I read Monkey Mind with admiration for its bravery and clarity. Daniel Smith’s anxiety is matched by a wonderful sense of the comic, and it is this which makes Monkey Mind not only a dark, pain-filled book but a hilariously funny one, too. I broke out into explosive laughter again and again.” —Oliver Sacks, bestselling author of The Mind’s Eye and Musicophilia
“Monkey Mind does for anxiety what William Styron’s Darkness Visible did for depression.” —Aaron T. Beck, father of cognitive therapy
“I don’t know Daniel Smith, but I do want to give him a hug. His book is so bracingly honest, so hilarious, so sharp, it’s clear there’s one thing he doesn’t have to be anxious about: Whether or not he’s a great writer.” —A.J. Jacobs, author of Drop Dead Healthy and The Year of Living Biblically
“You don’t need a Jewish mother, or a profound sweating problem, to feel Daniel Smith’s pain in Monkey Mind. His memoir treats what must be the essential ailment of our time — anxiety — and it does so with wisdom, honesty, and the kind of belly laughs that can only come from troubles transformed.” —Chad Harbach, author of The Art of Fielding
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