Connect: 12 Vital Ties That Open Your Heart, Lengthen Your Life, and Deepen Your Soul

For enhancing life quality, Hallowell has deceptively simple advice: connect. If it's a sad commentary on our times that people need to be reminded of the value of, indeed the need for, fundamental human connection, the author of Worry and co-author of Driven to Distraction doesn't dwell on it. Instead, he demonstrates the powerful benefits of connection through highly personal stories of his own painful youth and such examples as a couple who weathered significant strains in their long-enduring marriage and the creative life of his lifelong friend Jonathan Galassi (Farrar, Straus & Giroux's editorial director). Urging return to the ""human moment,"" which he describes as ""people talking to one another in person with interest,"" he notes some causes of social disconnectedness, including the quest for personal freedom and, ironically, advanced communications technology. Despite his prestigious academic standing as a psychiatrist and lecturer at Harvard Medical School, Hallowell's style is easy and will be especially appealing to baby boomers searching for meaning and balance. Recognizing that individuals vary in the number and depth of their connections, he identifies many potential sources: family, both of origin and created; friends and community; one's work or mission; beauty, music, art, literature and ideas; the past; nature and pets; institutions, oneself and one's belief system. Two slim, concluding chapters suggest ways to examine and enhance one's own connections, but reinforcement is hardly needed after absorbing Hallowell's wise lessons. He may not be the first to identify the missing ingredient in many lives, but he can claim authority of a splendid articulation in this book. Agent, Jill Kneerim of the Palmer & Dodge Agency. 12-city tour; 20-city radio satellite tour; PBS one-hour special. (Sept.)