The best books that offer surprising and useful insights into the management of mental suffering

One of several Lamott non-fiction works that we love, you’ll return to this slim volume many times over for a witty, warming shot of wisdom. With a familiar mix of the philosophical, autobiographical, and anecdotal, Lamott provides a refreshing perspective on coping with hopelessness and suffering, both private and public. For Lamott, meaning comes from ‘living stitch by stitch' and protects us from being overwhelmed by the world’s problems (or our own). Through hard topics including her own addiction and losses, the author testifies to the power of hope and community. Like a therapist or forensic psychiatrist, Lamott talks of the import of bearing witness to the suffering of others, as a path to change.

Despite a very different voice and style, this work mirrors Lamott’s messaging. Perhaps more familiar as the author of the Narnia books, here Jack Lewis offers a devil’s view of how humans get tempted to evil. The book is made up of imaginary letters from a senior devil Screwtape to a junior and incompetent. This book is as witty as it is truthful; particularly about how much suffering arises from self-deception. And we highly recommend listening to the audio version perfectly read by John Cleese!

Patchett is a sublime novelist, but this work of memoir is unbeatable, one of those books you find yourself gifting to friends and family as soon as you’ve finished it. Written soon after her dear friend, the poet Lucy Grealy, died too young, this is an account of their deep friendship over two decades. Though they had much in common, the story as it unfolds demonstrates how it is possible for two people to grapple with creative struggles and trauma very differently. We also felt Patchett captured some essential qualities of female friendship, so that we see Lucy through Ann’s eyes, and makes us also Lucy’s friends.

This is another book about creativity, trauma, and the healing power of writing, but this time, the subjects are men. In this work of historical fiction, Barker explores the real experiences of the war poets Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen, and their psychotherapist WH Rivers. Barker gives us a nuanced look at male love and friendship within her exploration of a doctor working on the treatment of trauma, then described as ‘shell shock’ (today known as PTSD). 

The ultimate book about spiritual survival, written by concentration camp survivor and psychiatrist Viktor Frankl. They say this book was written in nine days, and you’ll read it in one sitting; more than a story of the horrors of daily life in Auschwitz, this is a handbook for dealing with every kind of despair. Gwen has applied Frankl’s insights in her forensic practice to help offenders discover meaning in the harm they’ve done to themselves and their victims and seen how doing so can transform mental anguish into finding some purpose in life, a freedom we all have – even someone serving a life sentence in prison. Frankl’s life-changing message is that ‘those who have a why to live can bear almost any how.’