Vous voulez voir cette page en fran�ais ? Cliquez ici.

Quantity:

More Buying Choices

33 used & new from CDN$ 6.17

Have one to sell? Sell yours here

An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness (Paperback)

by Kay Redfield Jamison (Author) "I was standing with my head back, one pigtail caught between my teeth, listening to the jet overhead ..." (more)

4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (208 customer reviews)

List Price:	CDN$ 18.95
Price:	CDN$ 13.83 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over CDN$ 39. Details
You Save:	CDN$ 5.12 (27%)
	o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o

In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.ca. Gift-wrap available.

10 new from CDN$ 8.55 23 used from CDN$ 6.17

Looking for Textbooks? Save up to 37% on New--and up to 90% on Used
Hit the books in Amazon.ca's Textbook Store and save up to 37% on over 100,000 new textbooks shipped from and sold by Amazon.ca. For even bigger savings, get up to 90% off the list price of thousands of used listings. Learn more.

› See more product promotions

Frequently Bought Together

Total List Price: CDN$ 60.89
Price For All Three: CDN$ 45.13

Show availability and shipping details

This item: An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness by Kay Redfield Jamison
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.ca.
Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over CDN$ 39. Details
Touched With Fire by Kay Redfield Jamison
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.ca.
Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over CDN$ 39. Details
The Bipolar Disorder Survival Guide: What You and Your Family Need to Know by David J. Miklowitz PhD
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.ca.
Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over CDN$ 39. Details

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought

Touched With Fire

by Kay Redfield Jamison

3.9 out of 5 stars (42) CDN$ 13.86

Exuberance: The Passion for Life

by Kay Redfield Jamison

CDN$ 14.56

The Bipolar Disorder Survival Guide: What You and Your Family Need to Know

by David J. Miklowitz PhD

4.7 out of 5 stars (18) CDN$ 17.44

Night Falls Fast: Understanding Suicide

by Kay Redfield Jamison

4.3 out of 5 stars (52) CDN$ 15.33

Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness

by William Styron

4.3 out of 5 stars (90) CDN$ 10.91

› Explore similar items

Product Details

Paperback: 240 pages
Publisher: Vintage; 1 edition (Jan 14 1997)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0679763309
ISBN-13: 978-0679763307
Product Dimensions: 20.1 x 12.7 x 2.5 cm
Shipping Weight: 273 g

Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (208 customer reviews)

Amazon.ca Sales Rank: #10,081 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)
Popular in these categories:
#4 in Books > Health, Mind & Body > Mental Health > Manic Depression
#11 in Books > Health, Mind & Body > Aging > Depression
#22 in Books > Health, Mind & Body > Mental Health > Mood Disorders

Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?

Product Description

From Amazon.com

In Touched with Fire, Kay Redfield Jamison, a psychiatrist, turned a mirror on the creativity so often associated with mental illness. In this book she turns that mirror on herself. With breathtaking honesty she tells of her own manic depression, the bitter costs of her illness, and its paradoxical benefits: "There is a particular kind of pain, elation, loneliness and terror involved in this kind of madness.... It will never end, for madness carves its own reality." This is one of the best scientific autobiographies ever written, a combination of clarity, truth, and insight into human character. "We are all, as Byron put it, differently organized," Jamison writes. "We each move within the restraints of our temperament and live up only partially to its possibilities." Jamison's ability to live fully within her limitations is an inspiration to her fellow mortals, whatever our particular burdens may be. --Mary Ellen Curtin

From Publishers Weekly

Jamison's memoir springs from her dual perspective as both a psychiatric expert in manic depression and a sufferer of the disease.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Product Description

Inside This Book (Learn More)

First Sentence
I was standing with my head back, one pigtail caught between my teeth, listening to the jet overhead. Read the first page

Explore More
Concordance

Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt

Suggested Tags from Similar Products

(What's this?)

Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)

chronic illness(1)

health(1)

illness(1)

memoir(1)

memoirs(1)

mental illness(1)

nonfiction(1)

psychosis(1)

psychotherapy(1)

schizophrenia(1)

What do customers ultimately buy after viewing this item?

	89% buy the item featured on this page: An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness 4.4 out of 5 stars (208) CDN$ 13.83
	3% buy The Quiet Room: A Journey Out of the Torment of Madness 4.9 out of 5 stars (31) CDN$ 14.56
	3% buy Touched With Fire 3.9 out of 5 stars (42) CDN$ 13.86
	2% buy The Bipolar Disorder Survival Guide: What You and Your Family Need to Know 4.7 out of 5 stars (18) CDN$ 17.44

Explore similar items

Customer Reviews

208 Reviews

5 star:		(139)
4 star:		(30)
3 star:		(23)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(10)

Average Customer Review

4.4 out of 5 stars (208 customer reviews)

Share your thoughts with other customers:

Create your own review

Most helpful customer reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Invaluable, Jun 13 2000

By	Megan Lautieri (West Warwick, RI USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Scouring the bookshelves for something, anything regarding the topic of bipolar illness, I came across Dr. Jamison's brilliant memoir. I had recently been diagnosed with rapid cycling bipolar and was unsure of how that would effect my life. I had always been moody and eccentric, how would I learn to live without those highs? How would I get used to losing the endless nights of various projects and explorations. Everything is brighter when you're manic and everything is more enjoyable. Surely I could endure the depressions just to experience the highs. However, when I read Dr. Jamison's book I saw myself reflected in the pages. Things escalate when you're bipolar, and much of the time you have no idea what you are doing or how you appear to others. Dr. Jamison describes the mania with precision. Her words are chilling to the reader who knows exactly what a manic episode is like. She is also very firm in her standing on treatment for bipolars. She advocates a combined approach of psychotherapy and medication. Her arguments are solid and helpful for the family and friends of a person living with bipolar. The novel is well written, informative, and enjoyable. I am filled with awe for Dr. Jamison because she has done so much for those of us living with bipolar disorder. She has inspired me personally because she is such a brilliant woman. This memoir belongs on everyone's shelf who is interested or involved in bipolar disorder.

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews

Was this review helpful to you?

Report this

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Please *stop* giving this book to bipolar friends, Jun 24 2002

By	Michael H. Sangree (Mansfield Center, CT United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Kay Jamison's smug, self-serving, self-satisfied account of her experience with bipolar disorder is just not the sort of thing one should inflict on a lesser being (e.g., anyone who is not Dr. Jamison.) For the love of God, stop buying this book for sufferers: we already have it, we bitterly despise it, and the recycling guy is on record that he will not pick up another copy.

The essence of a disease memoir is humility. When I audit another soul's trip through hell, I'm looking for glimmers, resonances, unplaceable smells, I'm trying to find shared shapes, to find my memory within the author's. It's a collaborative thing, this secondhand journey, and it only happens when an author is honest enough to speak from the heart. Jamison's strident voice of self-congratulation, though, derails any semblance of empathy.

Several years back I resided at alt.support.depression, one of the more chaotic newsgroups on the usenet system. A thread got going re Unquiet Mind, and the prevailing opinion was that Jamison was just too groovy to afford an honest account of manic depression. Someone wrote to the effect that, while Kay was brewing up lobsters in Scotland, he was in restraints at UCLA. For me, that's always nailed the problem with Jamison as a supposed spokesperson for my disease: she goes to such lengths to establish her credentials as an admirable normie that she cannot bring herself to write about the truly horrifying aspects of the mental illness experience.

She writes well enough: her objects agree with her verbs, she doesn't misuse the apostrophe. You could say she is educated, in a superficial, aren't I cute kind of way. But the insistent subvocal self promotion becomes a nails-on-the-chalkboard harmonic for nearly every paragraph. She makes Patty Duke look like Camus.

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews

Was this review helpful to you?

Report this

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful world of manic-depression, Jan 9 2001

By	L.G. Siller (Houston, Texas) - See all my reviews

This review is from: An Unquiet Mind (Hardcover)

This subject matter is one that I was researching in order to get an honest portrayal of what it is like for a person to live with this disease, but this book was not it. What I got were glowing platitudes about her many friends who supported her, her travels and romances, and how she grieved the loss of those marvelous highs when she was manic. There is hardly a word about the cost to her in terms of her personal relationships as there is not one instance in which she may have alienated friends and family because of her disease. Instead everyone was so understanding, even in her professional life. Despite a suicide attempt, I got no picture of what this disease has truly cost her. I also wondered with her many detailed scenes of drinking alcohol, if she ever considered that that was exacerbating her symptoms or the efficacy of her medication. She seems to spend far too much time ruminating about her disease and glorifying it, and not enough time in the solutions.

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews

Was this review helpful to you?

Report this

Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review

› See all 208 customer reviews...

Most recent customer reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Account
Having dealt most of my life with Manic-Depression, this is one of the better books to read, both from the Doctor's point of view as well as one that is living with the situation... Read more

Published on Nov 5 2004

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent book
While most spent their summers reading the bestseller lists, I found myself going through book on bi-polar disorder, the creative mind, and a few of fiction that cover both. Read more

Published on Aug 14 2004

5.0 out of 5 stars A found mind.....
I am a 26 yr old woman that has only six months ago been diagnoised with bi-polor...this book was amazing. So many of the same things that Kay speaks of I feel- deeply. Read more

Published on Jun 28 2004 by Kat Nelson