, by kay redfield jamison. fascinating book. jamison is a professor (and researcher) in psychiatry, and has done most of her work in the area of clinical depression and abhorant behavior. but she decided to take a rather different subject this time around and dive deep in the emotion of exuberance. full of story and biography, rich in science and observation, it’s a pithy study of an emotion i love, experience often, and never get tired of. i earmarked dozens of pages in order to pull quotes and ideas - wish i could type in a few of them here: but i don’t have the book with me, so i’ll leave that for a future post. this is one of those “i don’t normally read this kind of book” books that stretched my thinking in ways well beyond, i’m sure, the intentions of the author.

, by joe kubert. one of the five books i picked up in the bookstore at the holocaust museum, this illustrated book is fiction (all the others i bought were non-fiction). it tells the story of an uprising in the warsaw ghetto in 1943. yossel is the name of the main character, a pre-teen boy with a huge skill in drawing (which keeps him alive, as the nazi soldiers like his drawings). the entire book was drawn in pencil (most illustrated books are done in pencil originally, then inked later for the final version) to give it an unfinished vibe. the story is good, the characters are good, and the drawing is some of the best i’ve ever seen. i enjoyed this as much as any illustrated book i’ve read. highly recommended.