# Existential Despair

Canonical: https://www.bookquiver.com/justin-mcdaniel/existential-despair/9781837310227

![Existential Despair](https://quivercdn.com/covers/penguin/justin-mcdaniel/existential-despair_978-18-3731-022-7-2ea69cb3.jpg?v=2026-09-24%2004%3A09%3A57)

- Book: [Existential Despair](https://www.bookquiver.com/justin-mcdaniel/existential-despair) ([Existential Despair.md](https://www.bookquiver.com/justin-mcdaniel/existential-despair.md))
- Authors: [Justin McDaniel](https://www.bookquiver.com/justin-mcdaniel)
- Publisher: Penguin
- Medium: ebook
- ISBN: 978-18-3731-022-7
- Published: 2027-01-19
- Language: en_GB
- Binding: E-book

## Description

Literature is the way we wrestle with grief, meaning and survival. In this book, Justin McDaniel, professor and former Buddhist monk, invites us on a sixteen-week course of radical reading designed to unsettle, transform and restore. Each chapter is modelled on his popular university course, which requires the class to read a novel in a single sitting, grappling with complex feelings that arise and then articulating them before they evaporate in the busyness and distraction of the outside world. Through a captivating range of modern classics from around the globe – by James Baldwin, Carmen Maria Machado, Yukio Mishima, Ottessa Moshfegh, Paul Bowles and more – Existential Despair explores the experiences that shape us and test us to our limits, from childhood to longing, sex, loneliness and death. Existential Despair is a rare opportunity to pursue an immersive reading experience that is so much more than entertainment – one that could save your life.