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To someone who admits to being obsessionally drawn to the literature of selfhood and subjectivity, a book like Self and Emotional Life by Adrian Johnston and Catherine Malabou seems a fortuitous event. These two philosophers are well-read (and, in the case of Johnston, trained) in psychoanalysis and open to neuroscience—notably the versions of innovative thinkers like Damasio and Solms. the authors share a fascination with the mysterious properties of human consciousness and self-awareness that have thus far eluded convincing explanation, by brain scientists and philosophers alike. Taking a page from Damasio's recent works that address affect as the link between the mental and the physical, they propose a strong rereading of Freudian and Lacanian texts and a new conversation with the classic philosophical treatises of Descartes and Spinoza, both of whom were deeply engaged with a theory of the passions. To this mix, Malabou adds the writings of contemporary Parisian philosophers including Derrida, Nancy, and Deleuze. in his lengthier part of the book, Johnston makes a careful argument for integrating a concept of unconscious affect into psychoanalytic theory.