82 books like Too Much and Never Enough

Can you imagine being a neuroscientist who specializes in identifying psychiatric disorders from brain scans, finds a scan of a psychopath, and it’s his? That’s what happened to Dr. James Fallon, leading to this book that discusses the inner workings – psychological and physiological – of a psychopath. Merging genetic, structural, and environmental factors, Fallon brings you “into the dark side of the brain,” explaining the science and his personal experience as a non-violent psychopath. He examines psychopathy at all levels, helping you understand the true nature from “functional” to criminal. I could not put this down – it’s a story not to be missed!

I believe that mental health lies on a spectrum – a range of symptoms. Dr. Dutton explores the psychopathic spectrum – from serial killers to “functional” ones who live, work, and play among us. He maintains that we all have psychopathic tendencies in different amounts. He bases his ideas on the Psychopathic Checklist and the Psychopathic Personality Inventory as well as the latest research. This comes at a time when society, politics, and culture increasingly reward psychopathic behaviors by giving them what they crave – power, fame, and money. It helps readers fully understand the range and muscle of psychopaths.

This is a true story that pulls you into a strange, painful reality. What is it like to be the father of one of America’s most notorious serial killers? Jeffrey Dahmer murdered 17 males. He lured them to his home, gave his victims drugs and alcohol, and strangled them to death. After he killed, Dahmer had sex with the corpses, dismembered them, and threw the remains away. Sometimes he kept souvenirs, skulls, or took photos. This gruesome story by Jeffrey’s father, Lionel, exposes Dad’s shock as he unravels the truth. It talks about the horror, grief, desperation, and struggle to embrace the reality of the child he still loves. Would you be able to forgive if it was your child?

I’m ending with this unorthodox double feature (think Godzilla v. Kong) because girls who kill put a twist on the theme of this list. What are little girls made of? Sugar and spice and everything nice. But maybe they’re a little less nice when boys are boys.

A feminist reimagining of March’s classic 1950s novel has Claude Daigle perhaps deserving of his fate at Rhoda Penmark’s hands. What if he tormented and taunted her, and she took revenge? While the daughter in Stage’s contemporary novel walks a very narrow line that kept me unsure the whole time… the guessing was delicious. Is Hanna evil? Or misunderstood? Is her mom, Suzette, going to get her due? Or is she going insane? 

The author also reads this audiobook with professional polish making it a very pleasurable experience. Actually comforting as I would tune in often during the day doing the chores, with the iPhone in the back pocket. 

Maggie Haberman, currently a New York Times reporter with previous positions at the Post and Daily News, makes her account of the man “formidable” – to use a word from the New York Times review. But for me it was continually fascinating to hear the stories of Trump’s early years. For example, one of Haberman’s talking points is that Trump’s orientation to the world is one of hospitality, of course. This explains his charm to voters where I see none. 

It’s a long book, but I loved Haberman reading her story to me, as sad as it is, but as the saying goes, “knowledge is power,” and I feel stronger for knowing the human… show more.

Of the three books written by legendary Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward about the Trump Presidency (Fear, Rage, Peril), I thought Peril was the one that best demonstrated the danger that Trump’s style of populism, his authoritarian tendencies, and his post-truth rhetoric presented to the survival of liberal democracy in the US.

I was fascinated by the insider’s look Woodward offered; he makes you feel like you are in the room in Washington DC, when some of the most momentous developments in American politics in recent times unfold, from the Covid-19 pandemic, to the Black Lives Matter protests, and the January 6th riot at the Capitol—great and scary book.    

The Steal documents what happened in the weeks between the 2020 presidential election and January 6th in swing states that Biden won, where Trump persuaded local loyalists that the election had been rigged. Avid Trump supporters embraced every wild conspiracy theory Trump World tossed their way—imagining minor glitches to be bulletproof evidence of massive fraud. 

As the author of another narrative about the collateral damage wrought by purveyors of the Big Lie, I had obvious reasons to be drawn to The Steal. It deftly see-saws between besieged election workers and officials trying to do their jobs in the face of unrelenting pressure, and those who—truth, law, and logic be damned—applied that pressure. The Steal fascinates, both as a commentary on human nature and a ground-level account of an attempted coup.  

In his highly respected research, personality psychologist Dan McAdams has focused on the important role of a life story, or narrative, in creating our human identity.

This book is essentially a case study of Donald Trump that explains why so many of Trump’s actions seem so disconnected from truth and reality.

McAdams persuasively argues that Trump has no inner life story—no integrative narrative—and instead lives compulsively in the moment, crashing his way through life.

Regardless of personal political ideology, we must all recognize this modern-day profile in courage.  

Few have the moral standing of former Wyoming Congresswoman and one-time rising GOP star Liz Cheney to interrogate the once honorable GOP’s tragic erosion of leadership. Cheney emerged a party pariah not by abandoning conservative values, but rather by refusing to subordinate those values to her party’s absolute embrace of Donald Trump. 

I admire Cheney’s standing firm, resisting Trump’s willingness to undermine longstanding democratic norms, especially his role in fomenting the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol to subvert the peaceful transfer of power. Cheney, whose father was Vice President under George W. Bush, insistently elevated patriotism above partisanship, including serving on the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol.

This book by two Washington Post Pulitzer Prize-winning reporters contains even more behind-the-scenes looks than most at what happened during Donald Trump’s last year in the White House. Leonnig, a national investigative reporter, and Rucker, senior Washington correspondent, details nuggets such as South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham telling Trump a couple of days before January 6 that Pence couldn’t change the result and pointing out how Al Gore hadn’t tried doing that when he actually won the popular vote - but lost the Electoral College - in 2000. Trump replied that Gore wasn’t smart enough to pull such a move.

The authors journeyed to Mar-a-Lago a few months after the Capitol attack for a surreal interview with the former president. That alone is worth the read.