The Evil Hours

By David J. Morris,

Book cover of The Evil Hours: A Biography of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

Book description

“An essential book” on PTSD, an all-too-common condition in both military veterans and civilians (The New York Times Book Review).
 
Post-traumatic stress disorder afflicts as many as 30 percent of those who have experienced twenty-first-century combat—but it is not confined to soldiers. Countless ordinary Americans also suffer from PTSD, following…

When you buy books, we may earn a commission that helps keep our lights on (or join the rebellion as a member).

Why read it?

2 authors picked The Evil Hours as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Six months ago, I lost someone very close to me to suicide. This person had been suffering for years from complex post-traumatic stress disorder due to traumas endured both as a child and an adult.

I read this book in an attempt to understand more about the nature of PTSD, its causes and consequences.

The book is a harrowing account of the torment caused by PTSD, but also a history of the birth and development of the whole concept of PTSD (it gained recognition as a disorder thanks to the efforts of a group of Vietnam vets in the 1970s),…

For Morris, war was a siren call, “exalting” work that allowed him to “challenge death.” But once redeployed to the safety of America, he realized that months and years of waiting for the next bomb to explode had taught his body to react to potential threats in the environment that his mind rightfully ignored. A sack of trash at the side of the road. A car backfiring. A restless crowd. For the combat veteran, these everyday triggers can generate a crippling flashback or a spiraling panic, the body shooting up flares of alarm before the mind has time to recognize…

If you love The Evil Hours...

Ad

Book cover of Tap Dancing on Everest: A Young Doctor's Unlikely Adventure

Tap Dancing on Everest By Mimi Zieman,

Tap Dancing on Everest, part coming-of-age memoir, part true-survival adventure story, is about a young medical student, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor raised in N.Y.C., who battles self-doubt to serve as the doctor—and only woman—on a remote Everest climb in Tibet.

The team attempts a new route up…

Want books like The Evil Hours?

Our community of 12,000+ authors has personally recommended 100 books like The Evil Hours.

Browse books like The Evil Hours

Book cover of Here, Bullet
Book cover of What It Is Like to Go to War
Book cover of Shade It Black: Death and After in Iraq

Share your top 3 reads of 2024!

And get a beautiful page showing off your 3 favorite reads.

1,601

readers submitted
so far, will you?

Ad

📚 If you like The Evil Hours, you might also like...

Book cover of The Twenty: One Woman's Trek Across Corsica on the GR20 Trail

The Twenty By Marianne C. Bohr,

Marianne Bohr and her husband, about to turn sixty, are restless for adventure. They decide on an extended, desolate trek across the French island of Corsica — the GR20, Europe’s toughest long-distance footpath — to challenge what it means to grow old. Part travelogue, part buddy story, part memoir, The…

Book cover of Ambidextrous: The Secret Lives of Children

Ambidextrous By Felice Picano,

Bold, funny, and shockingly honest, Ambidextrous is like no other memoir of 1950s urban childhood.

Picano appears to his parents and siblings to be a happy, cheerful eleven-year-old possessed of the remarkable talent of being able to draw beautifully and write fluently with either hand. But then he runs into…

5 book lists we think you will like!

Interested in PTSD, mental health, and presidential biography?

PTSD 108 books
Mental Health 201 books