Touched with Fire or The Best Life Diet Daily Journal

Touched with Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and The Artistic Temperament

Author: Kay Redfield Jamison

The anguished, volatile intensity we associate with the artistic temperament, often described as "a fine madness," has been thought of as a defining aspect of much artistic genius. Now, Kay Jamison's brilliant work, based on years of studies as a clinical psychologist and prominent researcher in mood disorders, reveals that many artists who were subject to alternatingly exultant and then melancholic moods were, in fact, engaged in a lifelong struggle with manic-depressive illness. Drawing on extraordinary recent advances in genetics, neuroscience, and psychopharmacology, Jamison presents the now incontrovertible proof of the biological foundations of this frequently misunderstood disease, and applies what is known about the illness, and its closely related temperaments, to the lives of some of the world's greatest artists - Byron, van Gogh, Shelley, Poe, Melville, Schumann, Coleridge, Virginia Woolf, Burns, and many others. Byron's life, discussed in considerable detail, is used as a particularly fascinating example of the complex interaction among heredity, mood, temperament, and poetic work. Jamison reviews the substantial, rapidly accumulating, and remarkably consistent findings from biographic and scientific studies that demonstrate a markedly increased rate of severe mood disorders and suicide in artists, writers, and composers. She then discusses reasons why this link between mania, depression, and artistic creativity might exist. Manic-depressive illness, a surprisingly common disease, is genetically transmitted. For the first time, the extensive family histories of psychiatric illness and suicide in many writers, artists, and composers are presented. In some instances - for example, Tennyson and Byron - these psychiatric pedigrees are traced back more than 150 years. Jamison discusses the complex ethical and cultural consequences of recent research in genetics, especially as they apply to manic-depressive illness, a disease that almost certainly confers

Publishers Weekly

Drawing from the lives of artists such as Van Gogh, Byron and Virginia Woolf, Jamison examines the links between manic-depression and creativity. (Oct.)

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The Best Life Diet Daily Journal

Author: Bob Green

In The Best Life Diet, bestselling author Bob Greene gave you the keys to losing weight and keeping it off. In The Best Life Diet Daily Journal, the essential companion volume, Greene gives you the tools you need to stay motivated.

No matter what phase of the program you are in, this beautifully designed book will reinforce your long-term personal plan for health and emotional well-being. Each day has space that helps you assess how well you've met your daily goals as well as a place to record your feelings and eating patterns. A weekly summary gives you an easy-to-evaluate snapshot of your progress, allowing you to begin the next week of your program with a clear picture of what you did well, where you fell short, and how you can improve.