Daniel Callcut

The more you bring to this psychoanalytical book on desire in life, the more you'll get out of it –   by – Tuesday, 7th July 2026 Freud famously used the image of a rider on horseback to illustrate the dynamic between the conscious and unconscious mind.

Hopeful Pessimism (Princeton University Press 2025) by Mara van der Lugt Greta Thunberg famously told an audience at Davos, “I don’t want your hope.” What made more sense, she suggested, was for people to panic. Thunberg, it’s fair to say, is a pessimist about the climate crisis, having seen failure after failure on environmental issues by her supposedly wiser elders. Her bleak outlook might seem to allow little room for hope.

Think: In Defence of a Thoughtful Life (Polity) by Svend Brinkmann, translated by Tam McTurk Thinking is a hot topic, just not in relation to humans. Instead, it’s artificial intelligence that prompts daily discussion. Svend Brinkmann’s stimulating book invites the reader to reflect on the human ability to think, rather than the growing capabilities of machines.