“automatic and nonconscious” and “fully
conscious and self-reflective awareness.”
Empathy is one hallmark of it; “
mental-izing,” an understanding that “other
people have minds,” is the second. The
book engages with neuroscience, psychology, and psychotherapy, using
Austen’s characters as case studies. Jones
explains that “emotions are subcortical
brain-body reactions that become feelings” when “consciously experienced.”
Thus, in Pride and Prejudice, when
Elizabeth Bennett is surprised by Mr.
Darcy at Pemberly, her blush is the physiological expression (emotion) of her
embarrassment (feeling). Jones also
explores Nobel Laureate Eric Kandel’s
work, which found that neurons change
as the result of experience, applying his
finding to how Marianne Dashwood, in
Pride and Prejudice, recovers from depression after being jilted by a suitor. Readers
will find this book well worth the generous investment of time required and
finish it better informed about both the
science behind human behavior and the
artistry behind Austen’s work. Agent:
Laura Wood, FinePrint. (Dec.)
You Need a Budget: The Proven
System for Breaking the Paycheck-
to-Paycheck Cycle, Getting Out of
Debt, and Living the Life You Want
Jesse Mecham. Harper Business, $23.99
(224p) ISBN 978-0-06-256758-1
Acknowledging how stressful the
question “Can I afford this?” can be,
Mecham, a software developer, explains
that’s precisely why he wrote this helpful
book and invented his four-rule system
for budgeting. The primary question,
Mecham says, is “What do I want my
money to do for me?” To that end, the
titular “YNAB” plan is comprised of the
dictums “Give Every Dollar a Job,”
“Embrace Your True Expenses,” “Roll
with the Punches,” and “Age Your
Money.” Mecham conveniently addresses
readers of all ages (kids included) and
family situations (single, childless couples, and couples with kids), taking care
to include readers with variable incomes.
Cheat-sheet reminders at the close of
every chapter are especially helpful.
Mecham includes illustrative stories
from clients, providing an especially
helpful example of one couple’s custom-
★ Improv Nation: How We Made
a Great American Art
Sam Wasson. HMH/Dolan, $28 (464p)
ISBN 978-0-544-55720-8
Wasson (Fosse) makes a thoroughly
entertaining case that improvisational
comedy has “replaced jazz as America’s
most popular art” and represents the
best of democracy. Improv was a product
of the McCarthy era and came of age
quickly with an energetic, ambitious
cast of characters. Wasson brilliantly
weaves together the disparate strands of
improv’s first decade, when players with
different philosophies and skill sets per-
severed in defining their art. These pio-
neers, including the duo of Mike Nichols
and Elaine May
and actor and
comedian Del
Close, influ-
enced the
explosion of
comic talent
that poured
out over the
next half cen-
tury. Wasson
nicely fore-
shadows future events and collabora-
tions and does an admirable job of
making simultaneous events easy to
follow by drawing contrasts (for example,
the collegiality of SCTV’s Canadian style
vs. the raw competitive ambition of New
York City’s Saturday Night Live cast in the
1970s). He covers such major late-night
figures as John Belushi, Stephen Colbert,
and Bill Murray, as well as Alan Arkin
and Harold Ramis. In the spirit of an
improv performer, Wasson takes care to
never let the stars take over the show.
Photos. (Dec.)
Jane on the Brain:
Exploring the Science of Social
Intelligence with Jane Austen
Wendy Jones. Pegasus, $27.95 (416p)
ISBN 978-1-68177-554-8
Being a Jane Austen fanatic isn’t
required for appreciating this fascinating
book; Jones, a psychotherapist and
former English professor, will win over
the initially unconverted by the book’s
end. Austen’s appeal, according to Jones,
comes largely from her acute social intel-
ligence. This attribute encompasses both
between people. Ali synthesizes imagery
from poets such as Emily Dickinson and
Amiri Baraka that examine feelings of
loneliness and the effect of the world’s
material conditions on personal relation-
ships. The author also examines how his
identity as a queer person of color has
influenced his perception of connections
between himself and others, especially to
his conservative religious family. These
connections, he explains, are weakened by
the “rules of gender and sexuality” among
other “codes” used to categorize people.
His queerness “reveals better that latent
quality of loneliness shared by any mortal
thing.” Ali cleverly spurns convention for
this excellent mixed-genre collection.
(Jan.)
Swearing Is Good for You: The
Amazing Science of Bad Language
Emma Byrne. Norton, $25.95 (288p)
ISBN 978-1-324-00028-0
Science writer Byrne aims to give the
practice of swearing “the respect it fucking
deserves” in this shallow study, but doesn’t
quite hit the mark. Attempting to show
how swearing has evolved from a linguistic
“shortcut” into a “powerful instrument”
with physiological benefits, Byrne describes
a number of experiments in neuroscience,
psychology, and animal behaviorism. In one
such experiment, volunteers were asked to
hold their hands in buckets of ice water and
researchers found that swearing enabled the
participants to endure the pain for a longer
period of time. Byrne suggests that swearing
can help lessen both physical and social suffering, and that “stronger swear words are
stronger painkillers.” She also begins to discuss the topics of women’s use of foul-lan-guage and swearing in the workplace, but
fizzles out. (“Swearing really can break down
barriers,” she writes. “But of course, even
among workmates, swearing and abuse
aren’t always taken well.”) Readers probably
won’t be surprised to find out that British
women are as likely to swear as British men,
that women’s use of fuck has increased fivefold since 1990, and that swearing helps
people “communicate emotions.” Given the
book’s subtitle, the science here under-whelms and the flippant way that Byrne
handles it may have readers employing their
own choice vocabularies. Agent: Carrie Plitt,
Felicity Bryan Associates (U.K.). (Jan.)
