Here are 100 books that The Madness Vase fans have personally recommended if you like
The Madness Vase.
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I am a childhood abuse survivor, author, and therapist, and I am always looking for books to help me better understand the crazy healing process. I have done over two decades of therapy and have been working with clients for over twenty-eight years. In addition, I serve as an expert witness on behalf of plaintiffs who have experienced different types of trauma. Educating myself and getting the perspective from other clinicians and experts has helped me be a better therapist and expedited my therapy process!
This book, by Bessel Van Der Kolk, MD (Viking, September 2014), a bestseller, is probably the most renowned book on childhood trauma. His book changed my life and the way I look at healing from childhood trauma. \
Bessel has received praise from laypeople and professionals for this highly readable book. In it, Kolk emphasizes how the brain understands trauma and how, through different strategies, the brain can rewire itself to filter out thoughts and feelings associated with trauma.
Neuro-feedback, mindfulness, yoga, and play are included in the book to give the reader different methods for how to change the way the brain holds onto trauma. I have raved about Kolk’s title and the authenticity of his writing.
"Essential reading for anyone interested in understanding and treating traumatic stress and the scope of its impact on society." -Alexander McFarlane, Director of the Centre for Traumatic Stress Studies
A pioneering researcher transforms our understanding of trauma and offers a bold new paradigm for healing in this New York Times bestseller
Trauma is a fact of life. Veterans and their families deal with the painful aftermath of combat; one in five Americans has been molested; one in four grew up with alcoholics; one in three couples have engaged in physical violence. Dr. Bessel van der…
Storytelling wields the power to transcend time and place, connecting us through shared experiences and emotions. It shapes our understanding of the world and ignites the imagination, making it an essential part of the human journey. As a psychologist, I understand how the stories we tell about ourselves are crucial in defining who we are and that books and good people can help shape our character. The books I've chosen celebrate the human spirit and our ability to face adversity, adapt, and ultimately choose our destiny. As Stephen Covey wisely stated, “Our ultimate freedom is the right and power to decide how anybody or anything outside ourselves will affect us.”
This book by Markus Zusak is frequently named one of the best WW2 books. I like it because it’s a tribute to the resilience of the human spirit and the importance of hope in dark times. It’s a haunting and beautifully written novel set in Nazi Germany.
Narrated by Death, the story follows Liesel, a young girl sent to live with a foster family. As she navigates a tumultuous world filled with fear and cruelty, Liesel finds comfort in books and words. I loved the premise of stealing forbidden books and sharing their stories with others. Through Liesel’s experiences, I explored the themes of love, loss, and the power of storytelling in the face of adversity.
'Life affirming, triumphant and tragic . . . masterfully told. . . but also a wonderful page-turner' Guardian 'Brilliant and hugely ambitious' New York Times 'Extraordinary' Telegraph ___
HERE IS A SMALL FACT - YOU ARE GOING TO DIE
1939. Nazi Germany. The country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier. Liesel, a nine-year-old girl, is living with a foster family on Himmel Street. Her parents have been taken away to a concentration camp. Liesel steals books. This is her story and the story of the inhabitants of her street when the bombs begin to fall.
Psychology, the human condition, and interpersonal relationships fascinate me. I’ve studied the psychology of stories, their effect on readers, and things like moral development to understand better how to structure growth arcs and falls from grace in my writing. However, these studies have also changed the way I consume stories. Through books, movies, and video games, I can’t help but analyze story structure and its impact on its audience. As an author of epic fantasy, I am also active on TikTok and Instagram, reviewing stories and their structures and talking about all things fantasy. I hope you enjoy the stories on this list as much as I have!
This book epitomizes what I want in a book! The worldbuilding has a degree of depth, breadth, and imagination that has kept me coming back for multiple rereads. While the world is fascinating, and the magic system is evocative and intriguing, they are not what put this story at the top of my reading list.
Character. I love it when there is a full cast of complex characters to get lost in, and Sanderson can (and does) teach a master class on how to write unforgettable characters. The character motivations, the “Why” behind what they are doing, is so profoundly believable if not relatable. Every single character has a past that is drip-fed throughout the story, gradually delivering the formative wounds that made the characters who they are. That so many are written well in one book is just a bonus.
From #1 New York Times bestselling author Brandon Sanderson, The Way of Kings, Book One of the Stormlight Archive begins an incredible new saga of epic proportion.
Roshar is a world of stone and storms. Uncanny tempests of incredible power sweep across the rocky terrain so frequently that they have shaped ecology and civilization alike. Animals hide in shells, trees pull in branches, and grass retracts into the soilless ground. Cities are built only where the topography offers shelter.
It has been centuries since the fall of the ten consecrated orders known as the Knights Radiant, but their Shardblades and…
I rediscovered my love of romantic fantasies when my mother went into the hospital, and I needed a place to go to escape the horror of watching a parent’s health fail. I not only buried myself in reading fantasies filled with magical love stories, I started writing them again. Throughout my life, I’ve reached for fantasy novels whenever life got tough. As a child, I would read nearly every fantasy I could find. As an adult, my tastes have changed, and I’m looking for fantasy novels with a romantic twist. But still, it’s the heroine overcoming adversity despite the worst odds that gives me hope and comfort exactly when I need it.
Legendborn is a King Arthur tale set in modern-day Georgia. With that description, how could I not love this book?
Tracy Deonn is a master at blending Southern folk traditions and African lore with Arthurian legends. I fell in love with Bree, the typical Southern teenager starting out at UNC-Chapel Hill. She has magic, but it’s not the same magic as the mages who are gearing up for a magical war.
The tale is a clash of magical cultures topped off with a Romeo and Juliet romance. It grabbed me from the first page, and I haven’t stopped thinking about it since.
An Instant New York Times Bestseller! Winner of the Coretta Scott King - John Steptoe for New Talent Author Award
Filled with mystery and an intriguingly rich magic system, Tracy Deonn’s YA contemporary fantasy reinvents the King Arthur legend and “braids together Southern folk traditions and Black Girl Magic into a searing modern tale of grief, power, and self-discovery” (Dhonielle Clayton, New York Times bestselling author of The Belles).
After her mother dies in an accident, sixteen-year-old Bree Matthews wants nothing to do with her family memories or childhood home. A residential program for bright high schoolers at UNC–Chapel Hill…
The ghostly/magical and Taiwan are two of my major interests—I have written about both in my fiction. After living in Taiwan for a few years and getting to know my mother’s side of the family, I gained an appreciation for its complicated history, riveting politics, and the energy of daily life there. Its confluence of people and histories has made it a unique cultural amalgam and these books capture the way folk religion and the spiritual/magical are wedded into the bustling contemporary urban life of Taiwan. I hope you find yourself as enchanted and intrigued by these stories as I have been!
This affecting and disturbing novel about a group of queer friends in late-80s Taiwan was ahead of its time in content, form, and vision. Premised on the idea of a collection of notebooks, the text incorporates multiple literary forms, and the “otherworldly” element is in Qiu’s use of the crocodile as a literalized metaphor for queer identity. A sobering and captivating read.
Winner of the Lucien Stryk Asian Translation Prize
Longlisted for the PEN Translation Prize
A New York Times Editors' Choice The English-language premiere of Qiu Miaojin's coming-of-age novel about queer teenagers in Taiwan, a cult classic in China and winner of the 1995 China Times Literature Award.
An NYRB Classics Original
Set in the post-martial-law era of late-1980s Taipei, Notes of a Crocodile is a coming-of-age story of queer misfits discovering love, friendship, and artistic affinity while hardly studying at Taiwan's most prestigious university. Told through the eyes of an anonymous lesbian narrator nicknamed Lazi, this cult classic is a…
I’m genuinely fascinated by human nature and why we behave the way we do, the things that make us act within or out of character, and at what point they become a part of who we are rather than just a lapse in judgment or an isolated incident. Relationships in particular fascinate me because of the way they force us to reckon with our behavior towards ourselves and other people. I love seeing how writers explore and examine those relationships, whether before, after, or during them, and how they allow their characters to move through those moments. Often, despite how far-fetched some of the scenarios may feel, I find myself within their pages.
I rarely read books more than once, but this is one of the few that gets an exception based on its sharpness and ability to show its reader the highs and lows of a new, intoxicating, and hidden relationship.
The protagonist, as far as she knows, is straight, that is until she meets Finn. What happens then is what happens when you know that something is bad for you from the very beginning, but you pursue it anyway. So beautifully and painfully written but impossible to put down.
'A beautiful read / a perfect primer for an explosive lesbian affair / an essential truth' Lena Dunham
'I have meditated repeatedly on what it was about Finn that had me so dismantled.'
A young woman moves from the countryside to the city. Inexplicably, inexorably and immediately, she falls in love with another woman for the first time in her life. Finn is nineteen years older than her, wears men's clothes, has a cocky smirk of a smile - and a long-term girlfriend. With precision, wit and tenderness, Women charts the frenzy and the fall out of love.
I was born in Birmingham, Alabama, and raised in Virginia, so I am very familiar with America’s southern lands and culture. The South—also known as the Deep South—is a unique part of America’s tapestry of identities, and I love books set in this locale. Southern literature tends to focus on themes such as racial politics, one’s personal identity, and rebellion. When I wrote my book, I knew the story would have to take place in the southern states.
You may have watched the movie, but have you read the novel? Fannie Flagg gave us a beautiful novel about friendship, family, second chances, and good old-fashioned southern food in the form of Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café.
Using a mix of narrative voices, Flagg’s charming novel goes deeper than the movie, exploring the internal lives of the various interesting characters. I thought it was fascinating and compelling in equal measure.
Folksy and fresh, endearing and affecting, Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe is a now-classic novel about two women: Evelyn, who’s in the sad slump of middle age, and gray-headed Mrs. Threadgoode, who’s telling her life story. Her tale includes two more women—the irrepressibly daredevilish tomboy Idgie and her friend Ruth—who back in the thirties ran a little place in Whistle Stop, Alabama, offering good coffee, southern barbecue, and all kinds of love and laughter—even an occasional murder. And as the past unfolds, the present will never be quite the same again.
I’m passionate about young adult sapphic romance books because this is something I wished I would have read in high school. If I had novels similar to these when I was growing up I might have realized that I identify as queer sooner and it could have helped me understand more about myself. Because of this, I’ve been an avid reader, and writer, of sapphic young adult romances. If it’s sapphic, send it my way. I hope you enjoy these sapphic novels as much as I have!
You Should See Me in a Crown is such a cute sapphic romance story, set around the fact that both the main character, Liz, and her love interest/new girl, Mack, are both running for homecoming queen to win a scholarship.
This book was a breath of fresh air because there were also real problems and insecurities brought up that sometimes are overlooked, making it the characters seem so real.
Liz Lighty has always believed she's too black, too poor, too awkward to shine in her small, rich, prom-obsessed mid-western town. But it's okay-Liz has a plan that will get her out of Campbell, Indiana, forever: attend the uber-elite Pennington College, play in their world-famous orchestra, and become a doctor.But when the financial aid she was counting on unexpectedly falls through, Liz's plans come crashing down... until she's reminded of her school's scholarship for prom King and Queen. There's nothing Liz wants to do less than endure a gauntlet of social media trolls, catty competitors, and humiliating public events, but…
My husband of 35 glorious years died of Pancreatic cancer in 2020. In two months, as COVID slammed, we had to put our beloved dog down, my husband’s lesson horse went hooves up, my husband died, I replaced two HVAC units and a water heater. I am a writer/journalist whose style is conversational. Writing about my grief maelstrom as if telling a friend focused me on the dark humor. My book Horse Sluts and articles in Horse Nation and other equine and/or mature-focused magazines are written in the same, “I’m no expert, but this is my experience” POV. I know the tone that helps.
I felt a kinship at Schulz’s expression of dislike for the “well-intentioned” euphemisms for dying.
Her visual explanations of what well-wishers really feel and the almost cinematic movement through her experience in losing her father reveal a skilled writer. I’m drawn more to fine writing than trodding through a stranger’s personal journey. The confusion of grief is shared in a scholarly manner including literary references that show loss is a time-worn path.
The self-assignment as torch bearer for our focus of grief is another mantle I recognized. I have found that the legacy of the one we’ve lost becomes a painful need. As with Schulz, keeping the flame burning relieves the ache until the ache burns out in its time. An uplift from the loss is Schulz’s “finding” of love. Hope pushes through the sorrow.
'Extraordinary . . . a profound and beautiful book . . . a moving meditation on grief and loss, but also a sparky celebration of joy, wonder and the miracle of love . . . Witty, wise, beautifully structured and written in clear, singing prose' - Sunday Times
Longlisted for the 2022 National Book Award for Nonfiction
Eighteen months before Kathryn Schulz's beloved father died, she met the woman she would marry. In Lost & Found, she weaves the stories of those relationships into a brilliant exploration of how all our lives are shaped by loss and discovery - from…
I think all romance writers have their favourite trope, and second chances has the strongest hold on me. I’m a person who makes mistakes, so I love to see equally fallible humans getting their second chance at a happy ever after too. People with a history always lend depth to a story too. At any point, you can pluck a moment from their past to show an element of their relationship. And angst. I love a good dose of angst. With second chances, it's likely been a rocky road. Then the clincher for me, that sense of fate and destiny of people who’ve gone separate ways but find themselves drawn back together.
So, let’s go angsty first with a Melissa Brayden, an author who lures you in with light-hearted banter, beautiful characters and settings, then knocks you out with a punch of angst.
Small-town romance, Strawberry Summer, tracks two very different characters over several years and several chances and it’s almost painful how much you want things to work out for these two. Readers who like shouting at books for the couple to get it together, this is a good one for you.
One of the things I love most about Melissa’s books, is the reveal that opens your eyes to another level in the story. You’ll be happily reading the romance, swept along, thinking you know where it’s all going and why, then she’ll pull back a layer and plunge you into an understanding of a character that makes sense down to your bones, and you can never think of that…
Just because you’re through with your past, doesn’t mean it’s through with you.
Margaret Beringer didn’t have an easy adolescence. She hated her name, was less than popular in school, and was always cast aside as a farm kid.” However, with the arrival of Courtney Carrington, Margaret’s youth sparked into color. Courtney was smart, beautiful, and put togethereverything Margaret wasn’t. Who would have imagined that they’d fit together so perfectly?
But first loves can scar.
Margaret hasn’t seen Courtney in years and that’s for the best. But when Courtney loses her father and returns to Tanner Peak to take control…
