On Breathing by Jamieson Webster *****

Reading dates: 7 April – 23 July 2025

I could have devoured this book (look at the intersection of subjects) but I decided to drip-read it, one short section a day, slowing down my breathing, pondering, and allowing the reflections time to seep. It payed off. While I think a little more on the mystery of breathing could have made it into the book, its encompassing, generous nature (even in breathlessness) is very well conveyed. My whole portfolio of interests is here: hysteria, pranayama, yoga, psychoanalysis, Lacan, breathing, voice … It is the perfect book for me. I mean, look at the bookmarks! I will miss it so much, I am desperately trying to find the book chapter on ‘The Respiratory Drive’ Webster wrote with Patricia Gherovici.

I often dream of writing a book on breath, what that might be like, what it might do. It would not be this one, in my head, but I suspect that, when I sit down to it in practice, Webster’s writing will be a literal inspiration, especially in its tone. There is an ease, a confidence, a letting go, waves of breath surging through the pages… The book is breath in all its myriad appearances in our life and consciousness, even in small recesses I did not consider before.