“The Book of Human Emotions” by Tiffany Watt Smith

I first came across this author through her recent TED Talk on emotions. I was so fascinated by it that I decided to read the book as well!

Smith’s argument is that emotions vary across time and across cultures, therefore there are no basic emotions that we all universally feel. We are so much more complex than that. This book is not an attempt to categorize all of the emotions, but merely to highlight a select number of them and provide context for them. There are all of the major emotions like love, anger, and happiness, but also obscure ones such as ambiguphobia (the fear of being unclear) or l‘appel du vide (French for “the call of the void”). It’s a fascinating look at our psychology.

I absolutely loved the format of this book, the emotions are arranged alphabetically, with short essays about each one. Depending on the emotion, Smith will explain its etymology and history and how its meaning has changed over time. For example, people used to die of nostalgia. Soldiers would be flown back home when they caught a bout of it, to avoid an untimely fate. However, that ended at the beginning of the 20^th century, and no one has died of it since.

Smith also has a lot of fun with this, a great example is how the entry for “exasperation” redirects to “frustration.” “Frustration” then sends you back to “exasperation” creating a perfect example of the two emotions, as well as highlighting Smith’s sense of humor.

Truly, this book left me wanting only more information on what we feel and how that is determined. Which is great because she leaves you with plenty of suggestions for further reading at the end. I hope she continues to write about emotions as well though, I thoroughly enjoyed this book!