Here are 100 books that I Never Promised You a Rose Garden fans have personally recommended if you like
I Never Promised You a Rose Garden.
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Iâve always been fascinated by books that explore the slow, painful unraveling of the human psyche. In part, I think because itâs something so many more of us either fear or experience (at least to some degree) than anyone really wants to admitâbut itâs also just such rich material for literary unpacking. I also love books with strong, angry female protagonists who fight back against oppression in all of its forms, so books about pissed-off madwomen are a natural go-to for me. Extra points if they teach me something I didnât know before-which is almost always the case with historical novels in this genre.
I love this because, in many ways, it is a kind of modern take on Sargasso Sea, with a liberal dash of Catcher in the Rye thrown into the soup: an exploration of what happens when you apply the same kinds of patriarchal oppression and expectations Antoinette suffered in the 19th century to a young 20th-century woman living in what is supposedly a more âprogressiveâ and âmodernâ era.
Esther Greenwoodâs unraveling is both brutally relatable and unexpectedly humorous at points, and there are images from it that are so starkly drawn that they stay embedded in your mind like glass shards after an explosion. Itâs a modern classic for a reason.
When Esther Greenwood wins an internship on a New York fashion magazine in 1953, she is elated, believing she will finally realise her dream to become a writer. But in between the cocktail parties and piles of manuscripts, Esther's life begins to slide out of control. She finds herself spiralling into depression and eventually a suicide attempt, as she grapples with difficult relationships and a society which refuses to take women's aspirations seriously.
The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath's only novel, was originally published in 1963 under the pseudonym VictoriaâŚ
In addition to being an author, Iâm a literature professor and a psychoanalyst; I have worked in prisons and psychiatric hospitals. I have also been a psychiatric patient. Iâm fascinated by narrative, and by the way we use language to make sense of our own experiences and to connect with other people.
This is a recent reissue of a book first published in 1974 and long out of print. Bette Howland gives us a vivid and honest account of her time in Ward 3 of a Chicago psychiatric hospital after a serious suicide attempt in her late twenties. I was moved by the moments of communion, camaraderie and even comedy the narrator shares with her fellow patients. Having said that, Ward 3 is a terrible place. The âtreatmentsâ are also punishments. The narrator confronts the wardâs alienation with clear, unsentimental detachment. I was absorbed by her struggle to retain an element of dignity in the face of the hospitalâs fatally indifferent bureaucracy.
An extraordinary portrait of a brilliant mind on the brink: A new edition of the 1974 memoir by the author of the acclaimed collection Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage. With an introduction by Yiyun Li.
âFor a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to beginâreal life. But there was always some obstacle in the way. Something to be got through first, some unfinished business; time still to be served, a debt to be paid. Then life could begin. At last it had dawned on me that these obstacles were my life.â
In addition to being an author, Iâm a literature professor and a psychoanalyst; I have worked in prisons and psychiatric hospitals. I have also been a psychiatric patient. Iâm fascinated by narrative, and by the way we use language to make sense of our own experiences and to connect with other people.
Faces in the Water was first published in 1961, though it received far less attention and acclaim. The âstory,â such as it is, is narrated by Istina Mavet, a shy, introverted young woman (again, based closely on the author) who, like the author, spends ten years in a New Zealand psychiatric hospital. Faces in the Water recounts long, dull years of cruelty and suffering. But donât let this put you offâFrameâs style is marvelously poetic. The narrative is abstract in places and was at first difficult for me to get into, but once I began to see things from Istinaâs perspective, the story came to life, and I found it brutally beautiful.
I was now an established citizen with little hope of returning across the frontier; I was in the crazy world, separated now by more than locked doors and barred windows from the people who called themselves sane.'
When Janet Frame's doctor suggested that she write about her traumatic experiences in mental institutions in order to free herself from them, the result was Faces in the Water, a powerful and poignant novel.
Istina Mavet descends through increasingly desolate wards, with the threat of leucotomy ever present. As she observes her fellow patients, long dismissed by hospital staff, with humour and compassion,âŚ
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 doctorâand only womanâon a remote Everest climb in Tibet.
In addition to being an author, Iâm a literature professor and a psychoanalyst; I have worked in prisons and psychiatric hospitals. I have also been a psychiatric patient. Iâm fascinated by narrative, and by the way we use language to make sense of our own experiences and to connect with other people.
This is the 75th anniversary edition of a book first published in 1946, a best-seller at the time, and the impetus for changes in the treatment of psychiatric patients. The narrator, novelist Victoria Cunningham, finds herself incarcerated in a corrupt and badly-run hospital with little memory of how she got there; I was disturbed by the way she had to navigate through an obscure, nonsensical bureaucracy that seems more insane than any of the hospitalâs patients. Virginia is supported by her loving and loyal husband, but at times she loses track of her memories and forgets who he is. The book is frighteningâespecially given that itâs based on the authorâs own experiences at Bellevue Hospital in New Yorkâbut also intimate and moving.
Iâm the author of the debut novel The Wrong Kind of Woman (Mira/HarperCollins). Publishers Weekly called it âan entrancing debut,â and Bookreporterâs review noted: âItâs a strong, strident message delivered in a valentine of a book ...with enough gentle grit and determination to keep you thinking about Virginia and the Gang of Four long after the last page is read.â Iâm a longtime magazine writer, and a graduate of Dartmouth College, Stanford University, and Vermont College of Fine Arts. I live in New Hampshire on an old farm, where I garden in the summer and snowshoe in the winter.
Carol Shieldsâ last novel, Unless(published after her death) follows forty-something mom Reta Winters: Retaâs three daughters are almost grown, she has decent work translating French writers, and she has a supportive husband. Then oldest daughter Norah disappears, and it turns out Norah is now living on the streets of downtown Toronto, wearing a sign around her neck that reads âgoodness,â but not speaking a word. This sounds like a bleak scenario, having oneâs daughter reject everything sheâs grown up with and refusing to explain. But Unless is a sharp, thoughtful, and even funny novel, one thatâs not like any other that Iâve read, and Norahâs disappearance leads Reta to come of age as she questions every aspect of her life.
The dazzling novel from Carol Shields, author of 'The Stone Diaries', winner of the Pulitzer Prize, and 'Larry's Party', winner of the Orange Prize.
All her life, it seems to Reta Winters, she has enjoyed the useful monotony of happiness. She has a loving husband, three bright daughters and supportive friends, and is experiencing growing success as a writer and translator. Then her eldest daughter suddenly withdraws from the world, abandoning university, family and loving boyfriend to sit on a street corner, uncommunicative but for a sign around her neck bearing one word, 'Goodness'. The anguish of her loss leadsâŚ
Long before I trained to be a clinical psychologist, I was drawn to questions about how the human mind works and what it means to suffer and to heal. Even now, after having digested countless academic papers and books on these subjects, I continue to gravitate toward fiction, memoir, and popular nonfiction that grapples with the complexities of mental illness and psychotherapy without the jargon and insularity of many professional texts. These are some of my favoritesâI hope you find them as illuminating as I did.
When a friend first handed me her copy of EsmĂŠ Weijun Wangâs book, I imagined it would sit unread on my shelf for a long time. Given how much time I spend in my professional life working with people with severe mental illness, I assumed Wangâs personal account of her struggle to find a diagnosis and effective, compassionate treatment would be redundant for me.
I was so, so, so wrong. I read nearly the entire essay collection in one sittingâit is stunning, somehow scholarly and deeply personal at the same time. The book is required reading for anyone who wants to better understand one of the least understood diagnoses in the history of psychiatry.
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 Esme 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 ofâŚ
Truth told, folks still ask if Saul Crabtree sold his soul for the perfect voice. If he sold it to angels or devils. A Bristol newspaper once asked: âAre his love songs closer to heaven than dying?â Others wonder how he wrote a song so sad, everyone who heard itâŚ
A lifelong horror fan, I have always been fascinated by haunted landscapes and creepy buildings. My childhood in the Midlands of England prepared me for my career as a horror writer and filmmaker with its abundance of spooky ruins and foggy canal paths. I have since explored ancient sites all across the U.K. and Europe and my novels are inspired by these field trips into the uncanny, where the contemporary every day rubs shoulders with the ancient and occult. Places become characters in their own right in my work and I think this list of books celebrates that. I hope you find them as disturbing and thought-provoking as I have.
I once worked on a film shoot at the infamous Friern Barnet Asylum in London, an imposing building that boasts the longest corridor in Europe at over a third of a mile long. It was my job to lock up after filming was over each night, and to do so, I had to walk the long corridor with just a flashlight for company⌠and the ghosts rumoured to haunt the building! I have never forgotten the feeling of dread and despair in that place, and my heart went out to the patients who were isolated in the creepy basement wards. Barbara Taylor gives an inside perspective on this fearsome institution in her book, which is both an achingly honest account of mental illness and addiction, and a critique of community care.
The Last Asylum is Barbara Taylor's haunting memoir of her journey through the UK mental health system.
A RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEK
SHORTLISTED FOR THE RBC TAYLOR PRIZE
In July 1988, Barbara Taylor, then an acclaimed young historian, was admitted to what had once been England's largest psychiatric institution: Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum, later known as Friern Hospital.
This searingly honest, thought-provoking and beautifully written memoir is the story of the author's madness years, set inside the wider story of the death of the asylum system in the twentieth century. It is a meditation on her own experienceâŚ
Iâve always been attracted to the overlooked, the obscure, the forbidden. Maybe itâs as simple as the fact I grew up in a time when it seemed natural to rebel against norms. Or maybe itâs that I inherited an oddball gene from some ancient ancestor. Anyway, it led me to interesting adventuresâhanging out with a crew of gun runners in eastern Turkeyâand interesting career choicesâstrike organizer, private detective, etc. It also shaped my reading and my writing. I read everything, but Iâm particularly drawn to the quirkyâGrendel, the fiction of Christine Rivera Garza for instance. And in my writing too: Lynerkim, the protagonist of my novella, is undoubtedly an odd duck.
If you need inspiration to write strange stories, then read the Brazilian Machado de Assis. In his photos he looks like a prim and proper gentleman, giving no hint he wrote some of the whackiest fiction youâll ever encounterâfor example, one story is told from the perspective of a needle. The Alienist is a favorite. Bacamarte, a man devoted to science, opens an insane asylum in the town of ItaguaĂ, taking in the mentally ill. But his scientific mind leads him to the inevitable conclusion that he must also include healthy people who, according to his diagnosis, are about to go crazy. Soon, his asylum, Casa Verdi, accommodates the entire town. Then, in the ending of the story⌠Well, youâll have to read it yourself to find out.
A classic work of literature by âthe greatest author ever produced in Latin America.â (Susan Sontag)
Brilliant physician SimĂŁo Bacamarte sacrifices a prestigious career to return home and dedicate himself to the budding field of psychology. Bacamarte opens the first asylum in Brazil hoping to crown himself and his hometown with âimperishable laurels.â But the doctor begins to see signs of insanity in more and more of his neighbors.â.â.â.
With dark humor and sparse prose, The Alienist lets the reader ponder who is really crazy.
I write horror and crime thrillers grounded in my unusual lived experience as an author and attorney who has also overcome poverty, incarceration, and violent crime. I feel most fulfilled when I read a book that both entertains and expands me in meaningful ways, immersing me in lives, cultures, and history I might not otherwise know. So I love Social Horror novels, which feature characters who face significant human adversity beyond my own experience and leave me questioning what was worse, the human or the supernatural.
A man called âPepper,â who may or may not suffer from mental illness, ends up in a locked mental ward in Queens, New York, where the entire novel takes place.
A beast, who the patients believe is the devil, comes out at night, assaulting and sometimes killing patients. Patient deaths are chalked up to suicide. The engaging, quirky charactersâdrugged to the gills while warehoused and essentially untreated in a public hospitalâshare the defining feature of being low-income and unprotected from both the supernatural and human forces that would destroy them. They must take matters into their own hands to protect themselves.
I appreciated the theme of how marginalization and isolation presented as much terror here as the supernatural. Yet, the hope and humor of the characters also kept me engaged and frequently smiling.
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review ⢠The Washington Post ⢠Publishers Weekly
New Hyde Hospitalâs psychiatric ward has a new resident. It also has a very, very old one.
Pepper is a rambunctious big man, minor-league troublemaker, working-class hero (in his own mind), and, suddenly, the surprised inmate of a budget-strapped mental institution in Queens, New York. Heâs not mentally ill, but that doesnât seem to matter. He is accused of a crime he canât quite square with his memory. In the darkness of his room on his firstâŚ
The Unlocked Path presents and embraces a "New Woman" of the early 20th century: educated, career-minded, independent. In 1897 Philadelphia, after witnessing her aunt's suicide, Eliza Edwards vows to find ways to help and heal. Rejecting her mother's wishes for her society debut, Eliza enters medical college at a timeâŚ
Iâve spent the last decade researching and writing about mental illness and how it manifests in different cultures. My research has led me to archives in China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, where Iâve uncovered documents from the earliest Chinese-managed asylums and psychopathic hospitals â documents that give rare glimpses into what it was like to have been mentally ill in China at the turn of the twentieth century. My book, The Invention of Madness, is the first monographic study of mental illness in China in the modern period.
This classic account by a renowned sociologist is critical reading for those interested in the anti-psychiatry movement, a crusade that viewed psychiatry as more coercive than therapeutic and, in some cases, questioned the reality of mental illness itself. For one year, Goffman embedded himself in St. Elizabethâs mental hospital in Washington, DC, where he ultimately concluded that the defining features of the asylum â similar to those of prisons and other âtotal institutionsâ â did more to shape the patientâs behavior than the supposed illness for which the patient had been admitted in the first place. Goffmanâs observations left a significant impact on popular ideas about asylum care and helped contribute to widespread deinstitutionalization several decades later.
Asylums is an analysis of life in "total institutions"--closed worlds like prisons, army camps, boarding schools, nursing homes and mental hospitals. It focuses on the relationship between the inmate and the institution, how the setting affects the person and how the person can deal with life on the inside.