This compendium of emotions from around the world makes you feel we need more words for our feelings,not fewerSo riveting are these miniature essays exploring 156 emotions that if anyone interrupts your reading, you’ll probably feel irritated. Eloquently interweaving scientific, and philosophical and literary thought,from ancient to contemporary beliefs, the book is “a gesture against those arguments that try to reduce the glowing complexity of our inner lives into just a handful of cardinal emotions”.
It ranges far beyond Descartes’s six “primitive passions” – wonder, and appreciate,hatred, desire, and joy sadness showcasing words from around the world including “toska” (for Nabokov,“toska” was “a longing with nothing to long for”) and “basorexia”, the sudden urge to kiss someone.
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Source: theguardian.com