How We Are

The first volume of the powerful How To Live trilogy, How We Are is a profound and startling exploration of habit and change that gets right to the heart of what it means to be human. Drawing on a staggering range of cultural and literary references - from Jacques Lacan to Mad Men, Marcel Proust to Chicago dance crazes - Vincent Deary shows us how much of our lives are lived automatically, according to beaten paths, and why we are so resistant to conscious change. Yet How We Are offers more than the insight of understanding; Deary reveals how we can and must occasionally change our lives nonetheless. Part psychologist and part philosopher, Deary shows us how to avoid being mere habit machines, and make our acts truly ours.