'I've been talking to brick walls' says Lacan, meaning: 'Neither to you, nor to the Big Other. I'm speaking by myself. And this is precisely what interests you. It's up to you to interpret me.' These brick walls are those of the chapel at Sainte-Anne hospital. Getting back in touch with his younger years as a junior doctor, Lacan amuses himself, improvises, and lets himself go. The intention is a polemical one: the best of his pupils, captivated by the idea that analysis evacuates all prior knowledge, have been raising the banner of non-knowledge, borrowed from Bataille. No, says Lacan, psychoanalysis proceeds from a supposed knowledge, that of the unconscious. One gains access to it by the path of truth (the analysand ventures to say what comes to mind, frankly and with no frills) when it comes to an end in jouissance (the analyst interprets what the analysand says in terms of libido). However, two further paths bar access to this one: ignorance (to devote oneself to it with passion is always to consolidate established knowledge), and power (the passion for might obliterates what is revealed by parapraxes). Psychoanalysis teaches the virtues of powerlessness: this, at least, respects the real. A wise lesson for an era, this era of ours, that has seen bureaucracy, arm in arm with science, dreaming of changing humankind in its deepest reaches - through propaganda, through direct manipulation of the brain, through biotechnology, and even through social engineering. Admittedly things were no better before, but tomorrow they could be far worse. Jacques-Alain Miller

Gregory McGregor grew up on the tough streets of New York where his cronies were criminals. Once a vibrant student, he becomes a truant. But, with help, he turns his life around and becomes a successful businessman in the world of high finance. Then corporate intrigue, lust, and deception teach McGregor a lesson that even the streets couldn't teach him. Robert Page is the business executive who recruits McGregor. To stay on top, Page is willing to pay any price, including selling McGregor out, but is he willing to pay the ultimate price? Shelly Walker is a woman on the fast track to corporate America's executive suite. She knows what she wants and she knows how to get it. And despite McGregor's girlfriend, she wants him. Patrick Donovan is a cunning, conniving, and ruthless businessman around whom nobody is safe. To Donovan, aspiring to the executive office is a game and he plays the game well-until he meets McGregor. Now, only time will tell who will be the victor in this corporate game of intrigue and deception.

With a foreword by Michael Portillo. Deborah Mattinson had a unique perspective on the New Labour project. As Britain's leading political pollster, she has been monitoring public opinion since the mid-1980s, and helped transform Labour into Europe's greatest election-winning machine of the modern era. Most recently as chief pollster to Gordon Brown as Prime Minister, she has been on the frontline of electoral politics, consistently representing the voter's side of the story to the politicans. Sometimes, she has encountered scepticism - a belligerent John Smith made an unappreciative witness to one of Deborah's focus groups - and she has often had to convey unwelcome results - telling a grumpy Gordon Brown he needed to spruce up his appearance cannot have been easy. With a stellar cast, including Neil Kinnock, Peter Mandelson, John Smith, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, Talking to A Brick Wall reviews the New Labour years from the voter's point of view. It tracks the ups and downs of the Blair/Brown era as seen from beyond Westminster, showing how closely political reputation correlates with voter connection. It profiles the swing voter, shows the importance of women's votes, and what gives a politician popular appeal, and maps the voters' views through the 2010 campaign and its immediate aftermath, showing how the electorate has been left out of political decision making and revealing the public's recipe for rehabilitating the Labour Party and rebuilding trust in democracy. A champion of democratic renewal through citizen engagement, Deborah Mattinson believes that we must move to new grown up partnership politics if democracy is to thrive.

Have you ever been aware of your thoughts and noticed how many are negative versus how many are positive? Did you know that if you talk negatively to yourself, you set the tone of failure and disappointment, while talking positively to yourself sets the tone of success and happiness? STOP Talking To Me will teach you how to turn your negative thinking into routine positive thinking, so that you will set the stage for your happiness and success. The simple S-T-O-P process which accompanies each specified emotion, along with the examples and stories will enable you to learn to pivot your thoughts and become that positive minded person youve always admired. Better yet, the book is specifically designed to be small enough to carry with you, so that you will have it handy whenever you find yourself in the realm of negative thinking! IF YOU WANT TO, YOU CAN CHANGE YOUR LIFE. All you have to do is to take the next step forward.

The author, a computer science professor diagnosed with terminal cancer, explores his life, the lessons that he has learned, how he has worked to achieve his childhood dreams, and the effect of his diagnosis on him and his family.