Pay attention to this ingenious collection of essays

Over four marvellous essays, psychoanalyst and writer Adam Phillips explores the sticky business of attention paid and attention sought

Adam Phillips: a truly generous soul

Essays: Attention Seeking, By Adam Phillips, Penguin Random House, €9.50

Our life spans are all too limited. (Sorry for the spoiler.) When faced with this inconvenient fact, the question of where to direct our attention becomes paramount, particularly since “our taste becomes a kind of fate”. But there’s a problem: we often don’t know what we want to pay attention to, our true interests and curiosities a mystery to us. And with regards ...