lightreads

Nonfiction. Context and analysis on positive mood and passion. Chewy, verdant, wild and dense, like all of her books. She suffers from an extreme case of bipolar, and you can tell that many of her books are conceived and written at the height of controlled mania. It lends them a scope, a degree of lateral thinking, an inclusiveness that's pleasing and a little overwhelming. I tend to walk away from her books, including this one, with a deeper knowledge of
history, poetry, or literature. This book is particularly intense and associative, and it's a bit light on the psychological and psychopharmacological research for my taste. But I love what she writes irregardless of content, for the way she harnesses pathology and turns it into brilliance (her previous book on manic depression among famous artists and poets and the effect on the creative temperament and output could just as easily have featured an autobiographical chapter).