A review by kurikaesu
The Book of Human Emotions: An Encyclopaedia of Feeling from Anger to Wanderlust by Tiffany Watt Smith

4.0

Made for an excellent self-help book, despite resisting being categorised as such. It's more like a lengthy research essay on the history of emotions. I happened to start on this book right when I needed a nudge to examine my own emotions more closely, and it was an entertaining read (admittedly, I mostly mean to say that it was a good distraction from brooding); educational and threaded through with the author's wry sense of humour. The liberal referencing to pop culture helped, creating more appeal than anecdotes from anonymous strangers who could conceivably be entirely fictional could have achieved. Why would this book work as self-help? (I'm sorry.) The author briefly details how certain emotions have been pathologised, while reinforcing the suggestion that all emotions, even the ones often considered unsavory, should be experienced, examined, and celebrated. There is nothing more reassuring than to be reminded that all emotions are universal, and valid. Even if there isn't a word for what you're feeling in English, some culture, somewhere, probably has a name for it. I'm only mildly disappointed that the book doesn't actually contain an exhaustive list of every! feeling! ever!, though it's more than adequate as an introduction to the study of emotions in human beings.