Staff Picks
#BroaderBookshelf 2020: Mental Illness
- Mahogany S.
- Tuesday, March 24, 2020
Collection
Fulfill the "read a book about mental illness" prompt with these titles
This list is part of the #BroaderBookshelf 2020 reading challenge. Find more lists here.
The Man Who Couldn't Stop
OCD and the True Story of a Life Lost in Thought
Published in 2015
"Have you ever had a strange urge to jump from a tall building or steer your car into oncoming traffic? You are not alone. In this ... fusion of science, history, and memoir, [science editor and writer] David Adam explores the weird thoughts that exist within every mind and explains how they drive millions of us toward obsession and compulsion"--Dust jacket flap.
Americanah
Published in 2013
"A young woman from Nigeria leaves behind her home and her first love to start a new life in America, only to find her dreams are not all she expected"-- Provided by publisher.
Wintergirls
Published in 2009
Eighteen-year-old Lia comes to terms with her best friend's death from anorexia as she struggles with the same disorder.
Herland ;
And, The Yellow Wallpaper
Published in 2015
Herland is a utopian novel written by feminist Charlotte Perkins Gilman. The book describes an isolated society composed entirely of women who reproduce via parthenogenesis. The result is an ideal social order, free of war, conflict and domination. The story is told from the perspective of Van Jennings, a student of sociology who, along with two friends, Terry O. Nicholson and Jeff Margrave, forms an expedition party to explore an area of unchartered land where it is rumored lives a society consisting entirely of women. The three friends do not really believe the rumors as they are unable to conceive of how human reproduction could occur without males. The men speculate about what a society of women would be like, each guessing differently based on the stereotype of women which he holds most dear. Wilder Publications is a green publisher. All of our books are printed to order. This reduces waste and helps us keep prices low while greatly reducing our impact on the environment.
Turtles All the Way Down
Published in 2017
#1 New York Times Bestseller #1 Wall Street Journal Bestseller #1 International Bestseller USA Today Bestseller "Astonishing.... So surprising and moving and true that I became completely unstrung." – The New York Times It's quite rare to find someone who sees the same world you see. Sixteen-year-old Aza never intended to pursue the mystery of fugitive billionaire Russell Pickett, but there's a hundred-thousand-dollar reward at stake and her Best and Most Fearless Friend, Daisy, is eager to investigate. So together, they navigate the short distance and broad divides that separate them from Russell Pickett's son, Davis. Aza is trying. She is trying to be a good daughter, a good friend, a good student, and maybe even a good detective, while also living within the ever-tightening spiral of her own thoughts. In his long-awaited return, John Green, the acclaimed, award-winning author of Looking for Alaska and The Fault in Our Stars, shares Aza's story with shattering, unflinching clarity in this brilliant novel of love, resilience, and the power of lifelong friendship.
I Never Promised You a Rose Garden
Published in 2009
Deborah, suffering from schizophrenia, struggles to overcome her illness and rejoin the real world with the help of her hospital psychiatrist.
This is My Brain in Love
Published in 2020
Rising high school juniors Jocelyn Wu and Will Domenici fall in love while trying to save the Wu family restaurant, A-Plus Chinese Garden.
Reasons to Stay Alive
Published in 2016
Like nearly one in five people, Matt Haig suffers from depression. Reasons to Stay Alive is his inspiring account of how, minute by minute and day by day, he overcame the disease with the help of reading, writing, and the love of his parents and his girlfriend (now wife), Andrea. And eventually, he learned to appreciate life all the more for it. Everyone's lives are touched by mental illness; if we do not suffer from it ourselves, then we have a friend or loved one who does. Haig's frankness about his experiences is both inspiring to those who feel daunted by depression and illuminating to those who are mystified by it. Above all, his humor and encouragement never let us lose sight of hope. Speaking as his present self to his former self in the depths of depression, Haig is adamant that the oldest clich ̌is the truest-there is light at the end of the tunnel. He teaches us to celebrate the small joys and moments of peace that life brings, and reminds us that there are always reasons to stay alive.
Wasted A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia
Published in 2009
Why would a talented young woman enter into a torrid affair with hunger, drugs, sex, and death? Through five lengthy hospital stays, endless therapy, and the loss of family, friends, jobs, and all sense of what it means to be "normal," Marya Hornbacher lovingly embraced her anorexia and bulimia -- until a particularly horrifying bout with the disease in college put the romance of wasting away to rest forever. A vivid, honest, and emotionally wrenching memoir, Wasted is the story of one woman's travels to reality's darker side -- and her decision to find her way back on her own terms.
(Don't) Call Me Crazy
Published in 2018
A Washington Post Best Children's Book of 2018 Who's Crazy? What does it mean to be crazy? Is using the word crazy offensive? What happens when a label like that gets attached to your everyday experiences? To understand mental health, we need to talk openly about it. Because there's no single definition of crazy, there's no single experience that embodies it, and the word itself means different things—wild? extreme? disturbed? passionate?—to different people. In (Don't) Call Me Crazy , thirty-three actors, athletes, writers, and artists offer essays, lists, comics, and illustrations that explore a wide range of topics: their personal experiences with mental illness, how we do and don't talk about mental health, help for better understanding how every person's brain is wired differently, and what, exactly, might make someone crazy. If you've ever struggled with your mental health, or know someone who has, come on in, turn the pages . . . and let's get talking.
Girl, Interrupted
Published in 1993
Kaysen writes of her experiences, augmented by pages from her medical record, in a psychiatric hospital and of the social and emotional assumptions that divide people into deviant or normal.
She's Come Undone
Published in 1997
In this remarkable coming-of-age odyssey, a lonely girl satisfies her cravings for love and happiness with her own unsettling solutions.
Furiously Happy
A Funny Book About Horrible Things
Published in 2015
In Furiously Happy , #1 New York Times bestselling author Jenny Lawson explores her lifelong battle with mental illness. A hysterical, ridiculous book about crippling depression and anxiety? That sounds like a terrible idea. But terrible ideas are what Jenny does best. As Jenny says : "Some people might think that being 'furiously happy' is just an excuse to be stupid and irresponsible and invite a herd of kangaroos over to your house without telling your husband first because you suspect he would say no since he's never particularly liked kangaroos. And that would be ridiculous because no one would invite a herd of kangaroos into their house. Two is the limit. I speak from personal experience. My husband says that none is the new limit. I say he should have been clearer about that before I rented all those kangaroos. "Most of my favorite people are dangerously fucked-up but you'd never guess because we've learned to bare it so honestly that it becomes the new normal. Like John Hughes wrote in The Breakfast Club, 'We're all pretty bizarre. Some of us are just better at hiding it.' Except go back and cross out the word 'hiding.'" Furiously Happy is about "taking those moments when things are fine and making them amazing, because those moments are what make us who we are, and they're the same moments we take into battle with us when our brains declare war on our very existence. It's the difference between "surviving life" and "living life". It's the difference between "taking a shower" and "teaching your monkey butler how to shampoo your hair." It's the difference between being "sane" and being "furiously happy." Lawson is beloved around the world for her inimitable humor and honesty, and in Furiously Happy , she is at her snort-inducing funniest. This is a book about embracing everything that makes us who we are - the beautiful and the flawed - and then using it to find joy in fantastic and outrageous ways. Because as Jenny's mom says, "Maybe 'crazy' isn't so bad after all." Sometimes crazy is just right.
Heavy An American Memoir
Published in 2018
-- is defiant yet vulnerable, an insightful, often comical exploration of weight, identity, art, friendship, and family that begins with a confusing childhood-and continues through twenty-five years of haunting implosions and long reverberations.
Everything Here Is Beautiful
Published in 2018
‟A tender but unflinching portrayal of the bond between two sisters."—Celeste Ng, New York Times bestselling author of Little Fires Everywhere and Everything I Never Told You A dazzling novel of two sisters and their emotional journey through love, loyalty, and heartbreak Two sisters—Miranda, the older, responsible one, always her younger sister's protector; Lucia, the headstrong, unpredictable one, whose impulses are huge and, often, life changing. When their mother dies and Lucia starts hearing voices, it is Miranda who must find a way to reach her sister. But Lucia impetuously plows ahead, marrying a bighearted, older man only to leave him, suddenly, to have a baby with a young Latino immigrant. She moves her new family from the States to Ecuador and back again, but the bitter constant is that she is, in fact, mentally ill. Lucia lives life on a grand scale, until, inevitably, she crashes to earth. Miranda leaves her own self-contained life in Switzerland to rescue her sister again—but only Lucia can decide whether she wants to be saved. The bonds of sisterly devotion stretch across oceans—but what does it take to break them? Told in alternating points of view, Everything Here Is Beautiful is, at its heart, the story of a young woman's quest to find fulfillment and a life unconstrained by her illness. But it's also an unforgettable, gut-wrenching story of the sacrifices we make to truly love someone—and when loyalty to one's self must prevail over all.
Haldol and Hyacinths
A Bipolar Life
Published in 2013
"With candor and humor, a manic-depressive Iranian-American Muslim woman chronicles her experiences with both clinical and cultural bipolarity. Melody Moezzi was born to Persian parents at the height of the Islamic Revolution and raised amid a vibrant, loving, and gossipy Iranian diaspora in the American heartland. When at eighteen, she began battling a severe physical illness, her community stepped up, filling her hospital rooms with roses, lilies, and hyacinths. But when she attempted suicide and was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, there were no flowers. Despite several stays in psychiatric hospitals, bombarded with tranquilizers, mood-stabilizers, and antipsychotics, she was encouraged to keep her illness a secret-by both her family and an increasingly callous and indifferent medical establishment. Refusing to be ashamed, Moezzi became an outspoken advocate, determined to fight the stigma surrounding mental illness and reclaim her life along the way. Both an irreverent memoir and a rousing call to action, Haldol and Hyacinths is the moving story of a woman who refused to become torn across cultural and social lines. Moezzi reports from the front lines of the no-man's land between sickness and sanity, and the Midwest and the Middle East. A powerful, funny, and poignant narrative told through a unique and fascinating cultural lens, Haldol and Hyacinths is a tribute to the healing power of hope, humor, and acceptance"-- Provided by publisher.
Everything I Never Told You
Published in 2014
Lydia is dead. But they don't know this yet . . . So begins the story of this exquisite debut novel, about a Chinese American family living in 1970s small-town Ohio. Lydia is the favorite child of Marilyn and James Lee; their middle daughter, a girl who inherited her mother's bright blue eyes and her father's jet-black hair. Her parents are determined that Lydia will fulfill the dreams they were unable to pursue—in Marilyn's case that her daughter become a doctor rather than a homemaker, in James's case that Lydia be popular at school, a girl with a busy social life and the center of every party. When Lydia's body is found in the local lake, the delicate balancing act that has been keeping the Lee family together tumbles into chaos, forcing them to confront the long-kept secrets that have been slowly pulling them apart. James, consumed by guilt, sets out on a reckless path that may destroy his marriage. Marilyn, devastated and vengeful, is determined to find a responsible party, no matter what the cost. Lydia's older brother, Nathan, is certain that the neighborhood bad boy Jack is somehow involved. But it's the youngest of the family—Hannah—who observes far more than anyone realizes and who may be the only one who knows the truth about what happened. A profoundly moving story of family, history, and the meaning of home, Everything I Never Told You is both a gripping page-turner and a sensitive family portrait, exploring the divisions between cultures and the rifts within a family, and uncovering the ways in which mothers and daughters, fathers and sons, and husbands and wives struggle, all their lives, to understand one another.
All the Bright Places
Published in 2015
"A do not miss for fans of Eleanor and Park and The Fault in Our Stars, and basically anyone who can breathe." --Justine Magazine A New York Times bestseller Soon to be a major motion picture starring Elle Fanning! Theodore Finch is fascinated by death, and he constantly thinks of ways he might kill himself. But each time, something good, no matter how small, stops him. Violet Markey lives for the future, counting the days until graduation, when she can escape her Indiana town and her aching grief in the wake of her sister's recent death. When Finch and Violet meet on the ledge of the bell tower at school, it's unclear who saves whom. And when they pair up on a project to discover the "natural wonders" of their state, both Finch and Violet make more important discoveries: It's only with Violet that Finch can be himself--a weird, funny, live-out-loud guy who's not such a freak after all. And it's only with Finch that Violet can forget to count away the days and start living them. But as Violet's world grows, Finch's begins to shrink. This is an intense, gripping novel perfect for fans of Gayle Forman, Jay Asher, Rainbow Rowell, John Green, and Jenny Downham from a talented new voice in YA, Jennifer Niven. "At the heart--a big one--of "All the Bright Places" lies a charming love story about this unlikely and endearing pair of broken teenagers." -- New York Times Book Review "...this heartbreaking love story about two funny, fragile, and wildly damaged high school kids named Violet and Finch is worth reading. Niven is a skillful storyteller who never patronizes her characters--or her audience." -- Entertainment Weekly From the Hardcover edition.
This Fragile Life a Mother's Story of a Bipolar Son
Published in 2012
Told in a mother's own words, this is a moving story of a loving African American family that faces the daily crisis of an unpredictable mental disorder. Charlotte Pierce-Baker and her husband did everything right when raising their son Mark: providing emotional support, the best education possible, and the freedom to choose his own path. At age 25, Mark was pursuing a postgraduate degree in film, living with his fiance, and seemingly in control of his life, so Pierce-Baker never imagined her high-achieving son would wind up handcuffed, barely clothed, dirty, mad, and in jail. Mark's bipolar disorder manifested late and included hospitalizations, calls in the night, pleas for money, jail, lawyers, prescriptions, doctors, alcohol and drug relapses, and continuous disputes about how to live and not live. This autobiography weaves a fascinating story of mental illness, race, family, the drive of African Americans to succeed, and a mother's love for her son.
The Bell Jar A Novel
Published in 2015
Sylvia Plath's shocking, realistic, and intensely emotional novel about a woman falling into the grip of insanityEsther Greenwood is brilliant, beautiful, enormously talented, and successful, but slowly going under—maybe for the last time. In her acclaimed and enduring masterwork, Sylvia Plath brilliantly draws the reader into Esther's breakdown with such intensity that her insanity becomes palpably real, even rational—as accessible an experience as going to the movies. A deep penetration into the darkest and most harrowing corners of the human psyche, The Bell Jar is an extraordinary accomplishment and a haunting American classic.
Challenger Deep
Published in 2015
A National Book Award Longlist Title A captivating novel about mental illness that lingers long beyond the last page, Challenger Deep is a heartfelt tour de force by New York Times bestselling author Neal Shusterman. Caden Bosch is on a ship that's headed for the deepest point on Earth: Challenger Deep, the southern part of the Marianas Trench. Caden Bosch is a brilliant high school student whose friends are starting to notice his odd behavior. Caden Bosch is designated the ship's artist in residence to document the journey with images. Caden Bosch pretends to join the school track team but spends his days walking for miles, absorbed by the thoughts in his head. Caden Bosch is split between his allegiance to the captain and the allure of mutiny. Caden Bosch is torn. Challenger Deep is a deeply powerful and personal novel from one of today's most admired writers for teens. Laurie Halse Anderson, award-winning author of Speak, calls Challenger Deep "a brilliant journey across the dark sea of the mind; frightening, sensitive, and powerful. Simply extraordinary."
Shook One
Published in 2018
Charlamagne Tha God, New York Times bestselling author of Black Privilege and cohost of Power 105.1's The Breakfast Club , reveals his blueprint for breaking free from your fears and anxiety to reach that elusive next level of success. Fear is holding you back. It's time to turn the tables and channel your fears to actually fuel your success. Being "shook" is more than a rap lyric for Charlamagne, it's his mission to overcome. While it may seem like he is ahead of the game and should have nothing to worry about, he is still plagued by anxieties—fear of being weak; fear of being a bad dad; fear of being a worse husband; and ultimately, fear of failure. Shook One chronicles his journey to beat back those fears and empowers you to no longer be held back from your potential. Shook One details the ways anxiety has been a driving force in Charlamagne's life since childhood. For many years, he stressed over what he thought were personal shortcomings: being unpopular in school, potential rejection by women, being ugly, and worst of all, falling into the life of stagnation or crime that caught up so many of his friends and family in his hometown of Moncks Corner, South Carolina. Even after achieving national prominence as a radio personality, Charlamagne still found himself paralyzed by thoughts that he wouldn't be able to take his career to the next level. But now, in Shook One, he is working through these problems with help from mentors, guests on his show, and therapy. He knows therapy and showing weakness are anxiety producing in the black community, but this is one of the reasons he wants to own his truth—to clear a path for others in hopes that they won't feel shame while dealing openly with their mental health.
The Collected Schizophrenias
Published in 2019
Powerful, affecting essays on mental illness, winner of the Graywolf Press Nonfiction Prize and a Whiting Award An intimate, moving book written with the immediacy and directness of one who still struggles with the effects of mental and chronic illness, The Collected Schizophrenias cuts right to the core. Schizophrenia is not a single unifying diagnosis, and Esmé Weijun Wang writes not just to her fellow members of the "collected schizophrenias" but to those who wish to understand it as well. Opening with the journey toward her diagnosis of schizoaffective disorder, Wang discusses the medical community's own disagreement about labels and procedures for diagnosing those with mental illness, and then follows an arc that examines the manifestations of schizophrenia in her life. In essays that range from using fashion to present as high-functioning to the depths of a rare form of psychosis, and from the failures of the higher education system and the dangers of institutionalization to the complexity of compounding factors such as PTSD and Lyme disease, Wang's analytical eye, honed as a former lab researcher at Stanford, allows her to balance research with personal narrative. An essay collection of undeniable power, The Collected Schizophrenias dispels misconceptions and provides insight into a condition long misunderstood.