At once prose poem, manifesto, sociological study and therapy session. Poet and psychoanalyst Nuar Alsadir’s first nonfiction book advocates the liberating power of spontaneity, curiosity, humor. The book practices what it preaches. The exposition jumps for intellectual joy, hopscotching from literary criticism to philosophy and psychology to political analysis.

Enthralling.

Ruminative.

Animal Joy is Alsadir’s ode to the bodily sensations that escape us, told through bursts of fragmented memories, jokes and psychoanalysis. Like any good clown, Alsadir shakes the reader from their stupor in order to intrigue, repulse and, most importantly, entertain..

By virtue of her psychoanalytic training, Alsadir is a great observer of when this false self takes over.

Though Nuar Alsadir set out to write a book about laughter, Animal Joy is a far deeper study of how we express and understand our most powerful emotions, told through meticulous psychoanalytic research and Alsadir's own experiences.

Thoughtful.

Over the course of a wide-ranging, sometimes scattered narrative, the author explores a host of topics.