Erin's Picks: Good Books
An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness
by Kay Redfield Jamison
An Unquiet Mind is a piercingly insightful work about one woman's continuous and, at times, seemingly unbearable battle with manic depression. Kay Redfield Jamison, a professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, knows exactly what it means to be both a manic depressive patient and psychiatrist specializing in manic depression. As she begins to experience more powerful manias and more severe depressions that inevitably follow, she gets caught between what is medically correct and what her mind dictates.
The New York Times Book Review calls An Unquiet Mind "an invaluable memoir of manic depression, at once medically knowledgeable, deeply human and beautifully written...at times poetic, at times straight forward, always unashamedly honest."
Erin says...I was deeply moved by An Unquiet Mind! Jamison retells her experiences so wonderfully. She has great medical knowledge of manic depression, available medications, and how desperately important medication can be. She also describes her manic and depressive episodes and why she quit taking medication. Throughout the book, Jamison's clinical judgment often clashes with her mental illness.
This is one of my favorite books and I definitely recommend that everyone pick it up!
Also, check out the book Life: The Movie: How Entertainment Conquered Reality by Neal Gabler.