Dimensions
141 x 222 x 26mm
This is a book about the lengths people will go to nuzzle out some pleasure - and the scientific reasons that lie behind those impulses.
Martin will look at changing attitudes to pleasure over the centuries‚ including religious and philosophical lawgiving on the subject‚ before moving on to the scientific hardwiring that supports all this human frenzy. He will look too at chemical pleasures‚ all our attempts to bottle the pleasure-giving principle for easy access and regular self-medication -- from caffeine to heroin‚l from tobacco to glue. Which brings us to addiction‚ and the darker side of pleasure's many moons... Before coming back full circle to the therapeutic bliss of pleasure‚ its key role in an individual's health‚ and that least-promoted‚ most-undervalued but most satisfying daily pleasure of all - sweet sleep.
The book will be enlivened by the extensive use of literary case studies‚ as was deployed so brilliantly in Martin's prizewinning The Sickening Mind.
