Exuberance: The Passion for Life

by Kay Redfield Jamison

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Author: Kay Redfield Jamison

Paperback:
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN 10: 0375701486
ISBN 13: 978-0375701481

Hardcover:
Publisher: Knopf
ISBN 10: 037540144X
ISBN 13: 978-0375401442

With the same grace and breadth of learning she brought to her studies of the mind’s pathologies, Kay Redfield Jamison examines one of its most exalted states: exuberance. This “abounding, ebullient, effervescent emotion” manifests itself everywhere from child’s play to scientific breakthrough and is crucially important to learning, risk-taking, social cohesiveness, and survival itself. Exuberance: The Passion for Life introduces us to such notably irrepressible types as Teddy Roosevelt, John Muir, and Richard Feynman, as well as Peter Pan, dancing porcupines, and Charles Schulz’s Snoopy. It explores whether exuberance can be inherited, parses its neurochemical grammar, and documents the methods people have used to stimulate it. The resulting book is an irresistible fusion of science and soul.

Review

“[Jamison is] that rare writer who can offer a kind of unified field theory of science and art. . . . The origins and mystery of creativity have long been her holy grail, and she argues — with her usual wit, ingenuity and panache — that exuberance is one of its wellsprings.” —The Washington Post Book World“Fascinating reading. . . . On a subject that invites inflates prose, Jamison maintains a deft but not showy eloquence. . . . Trenchant and entertaining.” —San Francisco Chronicle“Jamison brilliantly conjures up characters. . . . A book on exuberance ought to be a romp to read. The one is.” —Los Angeles Times“Jamison has a capacity for moving smoothly between tasty digressions, hard science and sweeping cultural analyses. . . . This reads like a book that was a long time in coming, written by one who came to appreciate the brightest sunlight only after becoming acquainted with the darkest nights.” —The Seattle Times

From the Inside Flap

The author of the bestselling "An Unquiet Mind-and internationally renowned authority on mood disorders-now gives us something wonderfully different: an exploration of exuberance and how it fuels our most important creative and scientific achievements.
John Muir's lifelong passion to save America's wild places, Wilson Bentley's legendary obsession to record for posterity the beauty of individual snowflakes, the boundless scientific curiosity behind Watson and Crick's discovery of DNA, sea lions that surf and porcupines that dance-Kay Redfield Jamison shows how these and many more examples both human and animal define the nature of exuberance, and how this exuberance relates to intellectual searching, risk-taking, creativity, and survival itself. She examines the hereditary predisposition to exuberance; the role of the brain chemical dopamine; the connection between positive moods and psychological resilience; and the differences between exuberance and mania. She delves into some of the phenomena of exuberance-the contagiousness of laughter, the giddiness of new love, the intoxicating effects of music and of religious ecstasy-while also addressing the dangerous desire to simulate exuberance by using drugs or alcohol. In a fascinating and intimate coda to the rest of the book, renowned scientists, writers, and politicians share their thoughts on the forms and role of exuberance in their own lives.
Original, inspiring, authoritative, "Exuberance brims with the very energy and passion that it celebrates.

"From the Hardcover edition.

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Exuberance: The Passion for Life