10 books like Awakenings

This brilliant non-fiction work by John M. Barry is fascinating for its scholarship and engaging prose. We learn about the source of the H1N1 influenza virus in birds through its mutations to a deadly pandemic engulfing the globe and responsible for killing an estimated 50 million people. In addition to writing layman’s course in virology, Mr. Barry focuses on individuals who perished and those who searched unceasingly for a vaccine. This is the most timely of books for readers who have endured the twenty-first century coronavirus pandemic. 

Isaac’s Storm brings the hurricane which hit Galveston, Texas, in September brilliantly to life, revolving around the central figure of the city’s official weatherman, Isaac Cline. 

I’ve read the book half a dozen times—it reads like a novel, its descriptions are vivid, horrific, haunting. The tension rises like the waters—it’s as close to being at the eye of a hurricane without… well you get the picture. Gripping from the first page to the last.

I came across Young Men and Fire when researching for a project of my own, and it immediately became one of my favorite books of all time. It's a meticulous work of investigative journalism, carefully uncovering the circumstances of the deadly 1949 Mann Gulch forest fire, and recounting Maclean's findings in heartbreaking clarity and detail. It's also a book of philosophy and poetry, full of breathtakingly gorgeous reflections on nature, and our place in and relationship to it.

In 1927, biblical rains caused the levees that line the banks of the Mississippi River to collapse. The floodwaters covered an area about the size of New England, killed more than one thousand people, and left three-quarters of a million residents without food, water, or work. The Great Mississippi Flood was one of the worst natural disasters in American history. It laid bare the deep inequities in American society, which left Black families stranded without drinking water or food while rescuers hauled white families to safety. The flood changed America’s relationship with water forever. Offering a gripping account of the flooding and its lasting impacts, this New York Times bestseller serves as a warning of the harm that results from a lack of preparedness.

The well-known tale of another hard-luck horse who achieves greatness on the racetrack never fails to inspire me. Like Snowman, Seabiscuit is another American icon, beloved for his tenacity and drive to win in the years that bridge the Depression and lead up to World War II. Hillenbrand is rightly praised for her breathtaking, heart-pounding descriptions of the race around the track, but we’re rooting for both the horse and the jockey, Red Pollard….not to mention the trainer behind the scenes, Tom Smith. Both Seabiscuit and Pollard bring a lot of baggage to the stable. Each has self-destructive vices, temperamental issues, and a whole lot of physical challenges. For me, the beauty of this book goes beyond the finish line. It meticulously chronicles the intricate relationships that develop between man and horse as they work toward a common goal. By the end of the book, the inevitable win at Santa… show more.

I read Darkness Visible in the midst of my worst depressive episode around 2008. I remember relating completely to his vivid descriptions of highly abstract psychological sensations, impending doom, for example, in which one feels askew to her or his surroundings, like death is imminent but you don’t know from where or how. Styron describes depression as being not unlike physical pain, and that moment in which you simply and utterly succumb to a kind of unprecedented existential suffering, if you will. It is a moment of agony, tender, fierce and absolute. Without a hint of self-indulgence, his rendering of depression is immaculate, a reckoning of the self, a crucible.

I was stunned by this book when I read it nearly fifty years ago, when psychedelics were rarely talked about. Huxley describes in glorious detail the effects of taking 0.4 grams of mescaline one day in 1953. A vase of flowers revealed naked existence; the legs of a chair became miraculous in their tubularity, seconds became centuries, and as for self – was he looking at a chair or was he a chair? I have since explored many psychedelics, as well other ways of inviting extraordinary experiences, and this book remains an inspiration. 

A book written after decades of research by a leading neuroscientist to share his love of the brain with the general public. An ideal starter book for those of you who want to get a sense of all the different parts of the complex organ that comprise the human brain. In a series of chapters on the many different parts, regions structures, and brain processes this book provides a succinct yet comprehensive overview of the brain. It explains what the different parts do to make your brain work and how they work together they make us do what we do and makes sense of what we are.

Veronica is a professor of psychiatry with a special interest in psychosis such as schizophrenia and especially those that are seen in women after childbirth. These states of altered consciousness and the memories they produce give us insights into the nature of mental illness and the making of memories. The book develops as a series of case studies that are gently described in relation to the different brain regions that are involved in the experiences with a simple-to-understand diagram. Bringing together her clinical insights with beautiful perspectives from prose and poetry as well as from philosophers especially Henri Bergson, she makes a compelling case for memories being the core of what we as humans are.

Magical realism is accepting the impossible as a premise. José Saramago creates an inexplicable epidemic of "white blindness" which spares few in a single city. Authorities confine the blind to an empty mental hospital, where they are victimized by criminals who hold everyone captive, steal food rations, and rape women. One eyewitness to this nightmare guides seven strangers through barren city streets in an uncanny procession through fearsome surroundings. A magnificent parable of loss and disorientation and a vivid evocation of the horrors of the twentieth century, this powerful novel of man's will to survive against all odds. José Saramago was awarded the 1998 Nobel Prize for Literature.