Book of Human Emotions
by Tiffany Watt Smith

An Encyclopedia of Feeling from Anger to Wanderlust

This book is about the story of over 150 different emotions and how their context is important in describing their meaning. Emotions are perceived and performed in different ways and can be defined and understood through cultural context, for example.

Both the familiar emotions and rare emotions are covered. Each has it own story and history. This is not a book about technical definitions and categorising emotions, but glimpses into historical pasts and current cultural politics of emotions, shedding light on why we feel the way we do today.

The emotions are described as such in alphabetical order for easy reference. One can read the entries page after page, or just flick through until something catches the eye. A great hard cover book for the reference shelf, or for personal or clinical use.