Description

About the Author

Kay Redfield Jamison is the Dalio Family Professor in Mood Disorders and Professor of Psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. She is codirector of the Johns Hopkins Mood Disorders Center and a member of the governing board of the National Network of Depression Centers. She is also Honorary Professor of English at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland and the author of the national bestsellers An Unquiet Mind and Night Falls Fast, as well as Touched with Fire, Exuberance, and Nothing Was the Same. Dr. Jamison is the coauthor of the standard medical text on bipolar illness, Manic-Depressive Illness: Bipolar Disorders and Recurrent Depression, and the recipient of numerous national and international literary and scientific honors, including a MacArthur Award. In 2010 she married Thomas Traill, a cardiologist and Professor of Medicine at Johns Hopkins.

Praise for An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness…

“An invaluable memoir of manic depression, at once medically knowledgeable, deeply human and beautifully written . . . at times poetic, at times straightforward, always unashamedly honest.”
—The New York Times Book Review
 
“Stands alone in the literature of manic-depression for its bravery, brilliance and beauty.”
—Oliver Sacks
 
“Jamison’s [strength] is in the gutsy way she has made her disease her life’s work and in her brilliant ability to convey its joys and its anguish. . . . Extraordinary.”
—Washington Post Book World
 
“The most emotionally moving book I’ve ever read about the emotions.”
—William Safire, The New York Times Magazine
 
“Written with poetic and moving sensitivity . . . a rare and insightful view of mental illness from inside the mind of a trained specialist.”
—Time
 
“Enlighting . . . eloquent and profound.”
—San Francisco Chronicle
 
“Piercingly honest. . . . Jamison’s literary coming-out is a mark of courage.”
—People
 
“Brave, insightful, richly textured and chillingly authentic.”
—Boston Globe
 
“A riveting portrayal of a courageous brain alternating between exhilarating highs and numbing lows.”
—James D. Watson, Nobel laureate and author of The Double Helix
 
“In a most intimate and powerful telling, Jamison weaves the personal and professional threads of her life together. . . . [She] brings us inside the disease and helps us understand manic depression. . . . What comes through is a remarkably whole person with the grit to defeat her disease.”
—Cleveland Plain Dealer
 
“A riveting read. I devoured it at a single sitting and found the book almost as compelling on a second read. . . . An Unquiet Mind may well become a classic. . . . Jamison sets an example of courage.”
—Howard Gardner, Nature
 
“Stunning. . . . [An] exquisite (in both a literary and medical sense) autobiography. . . . This is an important, wonderful book.”
—Jackson Clarion Ledger
 
“Extraordinary. . . . An Unquiet Mind must be read.”
—The New England Journal of Medicine
 
“A beautiful, funny, original book. Powerfully written, it is a wonderful and important account of mercurial moods and madness. I absolutely love this book.”
—Pat Conroy, author of The Prince of Tides
 
“A landmark. . . . The combination of the intensity of her personal life and the intellectual rigor of her professional experience make the book unique. . . . A vibrant and engaging account of the life, love and experience of a woman, a therapist, an academic, and a patient.”
—British Medical Journal
 
“Affecting, honest, touching . . . fluid, felt and often lyrical.”
—Will Self, The Observer (London)
 
“Quite astonishing. . . . Cuts through the dead jargon and detached observations of psychiatric theory and practice to create a fiery, passionate, authentic account of the devastation and exaltation, the blindness and illumination of the psychotic experience.”
—The Sunday Times (London)
 
“Rises to the poetic and has a mystical touch. . . . A courageous and fascinating book, a moving account of the life of a remarkable woman.”
—The Daily Telegraph (London)
 
“Fast-paced, startlingly honest and frequently lyrical. . . . Jamison has] a novelist’s openness of phrase and talent for bringing character alive.”
—Scotland on Sunday
 
“Superbly written. . . . A compelling work of literature.”
—Independent on Sunday (London)