Fascinating and elegantly humane ... refreshingly interdisciplinary in its insistence that philosophy and literature are going to be just as important investigative tools for this subject as clinical psychology
Guardian
Compelling ... it does reassure those of us who worry that we have a chorus of voices jabbering in our heads. It turns out we're not mad, or even odd, but simply lucky enough to have a second - or thirdm or fourth - opinion always on call to help.
- Kathryn Hughes, Mail on Sunday
An elegantly written survey of contemporary scientific research into the inner dialogues we all conduct every day ... persuasively unravels connections between the voices we hear inside and the words we say out loud, and shows that the conversations we have with ourselves can be as interesting and revealing as those we have with others.
Sunday Times
An ear-opening book - and an important corrective to myths about schizophrenia, the brain and even our self of sense
New Statesman
Profound and eloquent ... an intriguing array of fresh findings and perspectives [which] makes a persuasive case that one of the most intimate and private of our mental activities has a social origin. We talk to ourselves because we talked to others first.
Nature
Intriguing
- Salley Vickers, Observer
Throughout Charles Fernyhough's fascinating tour d'horizon he collapses many similar oppositions: between data and feelings, speaking and listening, external reality and our inner lives. These perspectives may not all resolve into a single viewpoint, but like the voices that constitute our thoughts, they are brought into stimulating and fruitful conversation.
- Mike Jay, Literary Review