Exuberance: The Passion for Life

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In her 1995 book The Unquiet Mind, Kay Jamison surveyed depression. In this book, she explores exuberance in all its joyous shades. Focusing on people and characters as various as naturalist John Muir and Pooh's friend Tigger, she reflects on how unrestrained passion and playfulness is related to both risk taking and creativity. Uplifting in subject and style.

Nancy Schoenberger

Jamison has by now produced an impressive and thorough investigation of moods and mood disorder studied from all angles, including the most personal. She has gone far in expanding her field to include creativity and the arts in her quest "to understand passion, imagination, and the nature of human greatness."
— The Washington Post

Publishers Weekly

If exuberance is "the passion for life," then Jamison's enthusiasm and sense of wonder about the subject proves as fine an example as any examined in her newest work. Expert in the arena of mood and temperament, Jamison (An Unquiet Mind; Night Falls Fast; Touched with Fire) detours from her usual analysis of mood disorders in favor of the livelier side of personality. She examines the contagious nature of exuberance, which she defines as "a psychological state characterized by high mood and high energy," offering diverse examples that range from John Muir and FDR to Mary Poppins and Peter Pan. Having in mind the simply put idea that "those who are exuberant act," the author details the energetic efforts of scientists, naturalists, politicians and even her meteorologist father. The dual nature of humanity is a common theme, as Jamison distinguishes between introversion and extroversion, nature and nurture, and healthy emotion and pathology. Such analysis is at times thorough to the point of redundancy, and even the most interested reader may find parts of the book exhausting to navigate. But Jamison makes up for it with her contagious enthusiasm for the subject-a mood that will make readers feel, well, exuberant. Perhaps Snoopy explains it best when, as exemplified in a comic strip here, he leaps for joy, waxing philosophically: "To those of us with real understanding, dancing is the only pure art form.... To live is to dance, to dance is to live." 100,000 first printing; 13-city author tour; simultaneous audiobook. (Oct. 1) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Psychologist Jamison, best known for An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness and Night Falls Fast: Understanding Suicide, now engages life's upbeat side. Aiming to reveal how exuberance fuels creative and scientific endeavors (an understudied area), she offers this concoction of animal temperament studies, music, play, discovery, science, laughter, love, religion, celebration, competition, creativity, and destruction. Many characters and sources are well known-e.g., John Muir and Teddy Roosevelt-but the author indelibly brings to life less familiar names as well (e.g., Wilson Bently on snowflakes). Scientists like James Watson are also given voice, adding an elixir of news to a hearty broth of biography and literature. Jamison's interpretations fit perfectly: "Action and distraction, he knew, will always trump the still" (on P.T. Barnum); "Strong passions, like fire, can civilize or kill" (on war). A major creative contribution to positive psychology, this book belongs in every library. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 5/1/04.]-E. James Lieberman, George Washington Univ. Sch. of Medicine, Washington, DC Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

An exploration of the psychological state of exuberance: its origins, its contagious nature, the effect of an exuberant temperament on the life and work of those who possess it, and its impact on society. Jamison (Psychiatry/Johns Hopkins Univ. School of Medicine), author of An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness (1995), which recounted her own bout with manic-depressive illness, defines exuberance as a "temperament of joyfulness, ebullience, and high spirits, a state of overflowing energy and delight." She reports that in very young animals, exuberant play appears to be important in forming social bonds vital to the survival of the herd or group, and in human children it's closely linked to creativity. To get at its essence, she turns to writers of children's stories-A.A. Milne, Robert Louis Stevenson, Kenneth Graham, et al.-who have portrayed the ebullience of youth in their characters. She explores its contagious nature, pointing to positive effects of the exuberant temperaments of both Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill in WWII. And while it's possible for this elated mood to intensify into mania in susceptible individuals, the author notes that it drives others to high levels of achievement. To understand the role that exuberance plays in enabling scientists to think creatively, work tirelessly, and overcome setbacks, Jamison interviews molecular biologists James Watson, Carleton Gajdusek, and Robert Gallo and astrophysicists Robert Farquhar and Andrew Cheng and looks at the impact exuberant teachers such as Humphrey Davy and Richard Feynman had on their students. Exuberance, Jamison concludes, is essential to social change and even to survival. In war, it can overcomefear; in work, it can prevail against fatigue, pain, and other hazards. Unchecked, though, it can lead to irrational or unethical behavior. As examples, she cites Generals George Patton and Billy Mitchell as men whose unbridled enthusiasms-read anger here-led them to go too far. A well-written, lively account, featuring a host of exuberant personalities. First printing of 100,000; author tour