100 books like Night. Sleep. Death. The Stars.

I mean, hello! The opening sentence “All happy families are alike…” is probably my favorite opening sentence of all time. This book is what I place in the “epic story telling” category for its breadth and scope of time. In many ways it is the story of two separate families and it hits on several themes I have come to crave and demand from art. Tolstoy looks at class, cultural and societal norms, and the emotional toll of familial expectations. It is a book so dense with interesting, flawed characters and it is one of the rare works I come back again to read every few years.  

I’m pretty certain Invisible Man is The Great American Novel. Some lines make me laugh aloud: “I would remain and become a well-disciplined optimist and help them to go merrily to hell.” But the moments that really sing for me are those that ring with humor, horror, tragedy, and beauty all at once.

Near the end, during a moment when the nameless narrator hides and listens to some men telling a story, he aches with the urge to laugh while realizing what’s been said isn’t only funny: “It was funny and dangerous and sad.” The book reminds me that all of those things can be held in my head at once. 

Even if you did not “live” through the Vietnam War and its domino-effect cultural disasters, this book will penetrate your consciousness as “tragic and uncannily familiar” (Michiko Kakutani). William “Skip” Sands is ostensibly a CIA officer engaged in Psychological Operations against the Vietcong. From the moment Skip lands “in country,” we are sucked into a vortex of violence, sardonic humor, camaraderie that’s six degrees from pathology, and paranoia -- all told through the lens of a singularly hallucinogenic yet gorgeous and poetic prose style that forced me from time to time to put the book down so I would avoid overdosing.  

This 20th Century masterpiece by the great Thomas Mann is not for the faint of heart, as it requires great powers of concentration, the antithesis of the Digital Age's distracted attention. But it is well worth the effort, for those with stamina, because all of humanity's foibles are found in The Magic Mountain, a book that remains incredibly relevant to our times. Mann's novel is about 20-something Hans Castorp, who visits his tubercular cousin residing in a sanatorium in the Swiss Alps; intending to stay two weeks, Castorp winds up staying seven years, waylaid and fascinated by the colorful sanatorium residents he meets and his own imaginary health issues.

Written on the eve of WW1, the book chronicles a group of dissipated Europeans rotting from the inside out, and ends with Castorp swept up and renewed by nationalism and marching down the mountain to join Germany's militaristic cause, a… show more.

I have spent much of my adult life working with kids (and grown-ups) who had some tough stuff happen early in life. Traumatic experiences can lead to some big, angry behaviors that make the parent-child relationship challenging. This precious book is an antidote to that negative pattern. Enjoy this sweet story with ages 3 and up.

I am a voracious reader, digesting several books a week. Every once in a while, a book stops me in my tracks, charging me to yell to myself and anyone who will listen - “Yes, yes, that is it!” This is exactly how I felt when I read Janoff-Bulman’s explanation of how trauma sleeps not in the “what” of the story but in how that “what” shatters our assumptions of a benevolent world, making us question if the world is inherently good, if events are meaningful, and whether we are truly worthy.

As both a survivor and researcher of workplace abuse, bullying on the job shatters all of these assumptions - charging the target to doubt the benevolence of the workplace, the predictability of the work environment, and the innate belief that we are inherently worthy despite the workplace gossip that hijacked our narrative.

This seasoned but timeless book talks… show more.

This was the first book I read that put into words my own experiences.

Though Levine does not discuss religious trauma, his explanation of complex and developmental trauma allowed me to easily draw parallels to what I experienced. Additionally, he is comprehensive in his education but makes it easy for the reader to understand.

This also, for me, led to a significant decrease in shame by simply being able to know what was happening in my body and recognize that there was not something wrong with me but rather, that my body and nervous system was doing exactly what it was created to do to keep me alive. 

This is an important book for anyone working with children and youth. High-risk youth do not just appear; they have had very difficult and traumatic experiences starting at a very young age.

The stories shared in this book are powerful and help illustrate how the brain works for children growing up in, or experiencing, toxic environments. This will help social workers, psychologists, youth workers, outreach workers, foster and adoptive parents, teachers, police, childcare workers, and coaches to understand and make sense of what is going on for these children. It can help to not take things personally when children and youth are exhibiting negative attachment behaviours, they are pushing away, and even when they are lashing out. Letting people into their world takes a significant risk as they risk further rejection and abandonment.

However, Perry and Szalavitz outline the importance of relationships, lots of them. This can help mitigate some… show more.

Ken McLaughlin approaches vulnerability and victim culture from what I think is a new perspective. The idea of victimhood culture and people seeing themselves as vulnerable was commonplace when he was writing his book. Looking at victims as ‘survivors’ he reveals how the victims may see themselves. McLaughlin looks at examples from social work and elsewhere to show that in therapy culture, the constant need for recognition and respect for vulnerable identities is both empowering and yet socially isolating. People may celebrate the fact that their victim status has been respected and they have ‘survived,’ but this leaves them unable to form any connection with others. A set of victims cannot be a community as it requires constant external validation.

In my view this book is an excellent example of how to understand the trauma caused by abuse at any age and in any circumstance and how it can devastate a person, can destroy them.

A particularly long-lasting and devastating impact is clear to see when it happens in childhood and in the family where most abuse occurs. I am aware of the significance of the model described by Judith with its stages of recovery. It is the basis of how The Woman’s Service I talk about in my book was developed by Maggie Schaedel.

It is the model Hilary worked to and because of that I was enabled to find an emotional connection with Hilary and begin to live rather than merely exist. I love this book because it provides academic research to back up its claims, and I am living proof the model works. How cool is that.