Here are 100 books that Truth & Beauty fans have personally recommended if you like
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My journey with mental health started young and has colored my life for as long as I can remember. So, I have a fascination with storytelling and time. Time is the container for stories. But for a long time, I didn’t understand the depth of what ‘story’ really is and how much it shapes everything. When I started to write my book and unravel how inseparable the story is from the mental health journey I’d been on, my appetite for writing that could help me understand that connection became and remains voracious. I hope these books are as impactful for you as they have been for me. Enjoy!
I’ve read this book over and over and highlighted something new every time. Somehow, through the lens of Nazi death camps, Frankl validates everyone’s suffering, including my own. I’ve always known that suffering is an inescapable part of the human experience, but this helped me understand that to the brain, it isn’t relative in the ways I always thought.
Furthermore, this book helped me understand that my coping mechanisms inform suffering’s hold on me. Stories are a coping mechanism, and I learned that redirecting my attention and creating my personal narratives around what is meaningful to me rather than the source of pain is key to the cage of suffering. This book changed how I understand the importance of purpose and the power of what I build my stories around.
One of the outstanding classics to emerge from the Holocaust, Man's Search for Meaning is Viktor Frankl's story of his struggle for survival in Auschwitz and other Nazi concentration camps. Today, this remarkable tribute to hope offers us an avenue to finding greater meaning and purpose in our own lives.
My interests lie in the personal experiences of war and revolution and their aftermaths. Radicalism and the Origins of the Vietnamese Revolution is a tribute to my parents' generation of young Vietnamese who sought to combine their attempts to free themselves of the shackles of oppressive tradition with the struggle to win independence from French colonial rule before the introduction of competing ideologies.
I discovered Pat Barker's Regeneration (followed by An Eye Through the Door and the River Road) after reading Wilfred Owen's war poetry. His "Anthem for a Doomed Youth" spoke to me as I thought of Vietnamese youths fighting and dying in the Cold War. Owen and his mentor, Siegfried Sassoon, describe the war not as a noble cause but as a series of horrifying experiences.
"Calls to mind such early moderns as Hemingway and Fitzgerald...Some of the most powerful antiwar literature in modern English fiction."-The Boston Globe
The first book of the Regeneration Trilogy-a Booker Prize nominee and one of Entertainment Weekly's 100 All-Time Greatest Novels.
In 1917 Siegfried Sasson, noted poet and decorated war hero, publicly refused to continue serving as a British officer in World War I. His reason: the war was a senseless slaughter. He was officially classified "mentally unsound" and sent to Craiglockhart War Hospital. There a brilliant psychiatrist, Dr. William Rivers, set about restoring Sassoon's "sanity" and sending him back…
The truth is, I’ve never fit in. I'm always asking questions like: Why do we do it that way? And, what if we tried this instead? These types of questions, however, though intriguing to me and other creatives, make the keepers of the status quo really nervous. As a professor and narrative inquiry researcher, I study the stories of people who've been silenced—extracting the characters, plot, and setting these narratives have in common. For workplace abuse survivors, a salient theme is they think big! To support this mission, I'm on the Executive Board and serve as the Education Director for the National Workplace Bullying Coalition and am a regular contributor to Psychology Today.
It was my research on creativity that led me to study workplace abuse.
Surprisingly, there are remarkable similarities among targets of bullying; most salient, they tend to shake the status quo at work while exploring and offering novel solutions to institutionalized problems. Unfortunately, as Grant details in his research, instead of embracing these innovators as forecasters of the future, organizations attempt to silence and minimize their contributions.
However, creatives are not in it for the money or accolades, but for the love of the game and dedication to the mission, thus when they are forced to bow to tradition and play smaller than who they were born to be, they exit the stifling work environment, thus further stagnating an already lagging work culture.
In this book, Grant brilliantly hails the power of the creative to both change our minds and change the world, urging institutions to give them space to…
The #1 New York Times bestseller that examines how people can champion new ideas in their careers and everyday life-and how leaders can fight groupthink, from the author of Think Again and co-author of Option B
"Filled with fresh insights on a broad array of topics that are important to our personal and professional lives."-The New York Times DealBook
"Originals is one of the most important and captivating books I have ever read, full of surprising and powerful ideas. It will not only change the way you see the world; it might just change the way you live your life.…
Desperate to honor his father’s dying wish, Layken Martin vows to do whatever it takes to save the family farm. Once the Army discharges him following World War II, Layken returns to Missouri to find his legacy in shambles and…
I am, by training, a philosopher, scientist, and clergyman who has spent 47 years speaking on issues pertaining to God, philosophy, science, and culture at many universities. Since childhood I’ve been fascinated both by nature, as well as by why people do the things they do. As for life experience, I’ve worked in several countries, and have been married for more than 44 years, and I raised 6 children … all of which have been an enormously valuable arena of learning. All of this has given me a deep conviction that I need to spend my life helping people to think about the things that are most important in life.
I have found this book to be a phenomenal exposé on the topic of temptation, presented as a conversation between a senior demon and its junior.
Having many decades of life experience, I have found this book to do such an outstanding job of portraying, through a fictional series of letters, exactly how we can be tempted to do, or not do, or say, or not say, or have attitudes which are destructive vs. beneficial. I walked through this book, chapter by chapter, with my six children when they were in their teens.
On its first appearance, The Screwtape Letters was immediately recognized as a milestone in the history of popular theology. Now, in it's 70th Anniversary Year, and having sold over half a million copies, it is an iconic classic on spiritual warfare and the power of the devil.
This profound and striking narrative takes the form of a series of letters from Screwtape, a devil high in the Infernal Civil Service, to his nephew Wormwood, a junior colleague engaged in his first mission on earth trying to secure the damnation of a young man who has just become a Christian. Although…
I’m a memoirist living in New York and my women friends have saved my life many times. I didn’t fully understand how important they were to me until the three I write about died within a few years of each other in the early aughts. I also teach memoir as an academic. I’ve learned from my favorite writers how crucial it is to push past shame and embarrassment to try and reach emotional truth—whatever that is for each of us. Only readers can decide whether one succeeds, but for me, the most important gift memoir can bestow is the writer’s willingness to risk intimate self-disclosure.
This poignant narrative of Anne Sexton’s life takes you inside the complicated emotions of a prize winning poet who began her career as a suburban housewife and mother. I especially loved but also envied the portrait of Sexton’s long friendship with poet Maxine Kumin with whom Sexton took her first steps in the writing of poetry. Famously, the two women kept a separate phone line open between their houses so that they could share and craft lines between domestic chores. Sadly, despite the pulls of friendship, the biography shows, even the most talented writer has demons that can’t be vanquished. Middlebrook reveals the psychic cost of creativity, especially for women artists in the years before feminism.
At the time of her suicide in October 1974, Anne Sexton, 45, occupied a central position on the American poetry scene. Today, her reputation is tangled up with that of Sylvia Plath, whom she knew, and tainted with images of monster or victim. This biography, written with the full co-operation of Sexton's family and her principal psychiatrist who released three years of audiotaped therapy sessions, reveals and pivots around the creative relationship Anne Sexton struck with an incurable illness. Suffering from a mental disorder that eluded diagnosis, Anne Sexton underwent intensive psychotherapy and repeated bouts in mental institutions for nearly…
I fell deeply in love with books as a child, wrote oodles of stories growing up, majored in English literature, and built a writing career in advertising and TV. But my deep love of children’s books never faded. Somewhere in my 30s, I had an epiphany sitting on the couch one day: I clearly saw that writing children’s books was what I wanted to build my life around. It took a lot of time and effort to accomplish that, but with the aid of a helpful hamster named Humphrey – and his friend Og - I found my happy place, and I hope I never, ever “grow up.”
Charlotte’s Web has it all: animal characters, a strong story with life and death at stake, yet as gentle as a breeze. Starring a naïve pig named Wilbur who faces a daunting future… and a unique friend in a spider named Charlotte. Again, a tale of true friendship when brave Charlotte soars beyond the limitations of a spider to save Wilbur.
Charlotte’s depth of character and creativity, paired with Wilbur’s innocence, makes this a classic book for all ages. Yes, she spins the words “Terrific” and “Some Pig,” but in the end, Charlotte herself is one terrific and memorable spider.
Puffin Classics: the definitive collection of timeless stories, for every child.
On foggy mornings, Charlotte's web was truly a thing of beauty . Even Lurvy, who wasn't particularly interested in beauty, noticed the web when he came with the pig's breakfast. And then he took another look and he saw something that made him set his pail down. There, in the centre of the web, neatly woven in block letters, was a message. It said: SOME PIG!
This is the story of a little girl named Fern, who loves a little pig named Wilbur - and of Wilbur's dear friend,…
Ava Winston likes her life of routine in Lexington, Kentucky. Then a tornado blows it away. Ava is safe in the basement, but when she emerges, only one corner of her home stands. Rather than crumbling under the loss, she feels a load lifted. Maybe something beyond the familiar is…
A writer friend asked me, "If you could write about anything you wanted, what would that be?" I thought immediately of Sicily and then of women (and men) trying to break free from cultural definitions that have historically kept us in traditional roles of housewife, cook, and mother, or breadwinner and protector. Having choice and being able to carve one's path is paramount, a deeply held value for me, both as an individual woman and as a psychotherapist. The courage of some of my clients who have dared to follow their own paths, along with my challenge to steer my own path, were also inspirations for the books I chose.
I fell in love with the entire Brilliant Friend series. Ferrante moves in so closely to her characters, so imitimately, I felt like I was right up next to them in Naples.
And of course, I loved the book because it takes place in Italy. Lila and Lenu, the two main characters, are both struggling to know who they are, not just as Italian women, but as individual women.
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Now in B-format Paperback
From one of Italy's most acclaimed authors, comes this ravishing and generous-hearted novel about a friendship that lasts a lifetime. The story of Elena and Lila begins in the 1950s in a poor but…
A so-called “recovering lawyer,” after 20 dreary years shuffling papers, I decided to pursue the Life of the Mind with a degree in Historical Studies at the Graduate Faculty of the New School. For an assignment regarding a significant historian, I chose Frances Yates, whose bookGiordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition spoke to me. Culling her papers at the Warburg Institute in London led to her first biography, Frances Yates and the Hermetic Tradition. Since then, I've transformed Dame Frances into a sleuth, who explores other unorthodox faith traditions, accompanied by another “recovering lawyer,” whose story mirrors my own, thus enabling me via bio-fiction to further enhance my spirituality.
Writing a Woman’s Life ignited my interest in women’s stories. More significantly, Heilbrun’s feminist Kate Fansler mysteries, written via the pseudonym Amanda Cross, inspired me to transform Frances Yates into a fictional sleuth. To date, Dame Frances (DBE) has encountered other unorthodox faith traditions, as revealed in Tarot; the Convent of Sor Juana de la Cruz in Mexico; among Philadelphia Quakers; and women religious at the Ursuline Convent in Québec. To date, there have been four Frances Yates mysteries.
In this modern classic, Carolyn G. Heilbrun builds an eloquent argument demonstrating that writers conform all too often to society's expectations of what women should be like at the expense of the truth of the female experience. Drawing on the careers of celebrated authors including Virginia Woolf, George Sand, and Dorothy Sayers, Heilbrun illustrates the struggle these writers undertook in both work and life to break away from traditional "male" scripts for women's roles.
I’m a memoirist living in New York and my women friends have saved my life many times. I didn’t fully understand how important they were to me until the three I write about died within a few years of each other in the early aughts. I also teach memoir as an academic. I’ve learned from my favorite writers how crucial it is to push past shame and embarrassment to try and reach emotional truth—whatever that is for each of us. Only readers can decide whether one succeeds, but for me, the most important gift memoir can bestow is the writer’s willingness to risk intimate self-disclosure.
The memoir helped me come to terms with the loss of three of my closest friends. Let’s Take the Long Way Home is an elegy to a beloved friend. It’s a book about grieving, of course, but also about recapturing loving memories of an intense relationship. The title, however, doesn’t hint at the story’s unusual major theme: the two women, both writers, meet over their love of and care for dogs! I confess that am not a dog lover, but I ended up captivated by the women’s passionate devotion to their animals and by seeing how this attachment strengthened their human bond. You don’t have to share a canine passion to be moved by this intimate portrait.
They met over their dogs. Gail Caldwell and Caroline Knapp (author of Drinking: A Love Story)became best friends, talking about everything from their love of books and their shared history of a struggle with alcohol to their relationships with men. Walking the woods of New England and rowing on the Charles River, these two private, self-reliant women created an attachment more profound than either of them could ever have foreseen. Then, several years into this remarkable connection, Knapp was diagnosed with cancer. With her signature exquisite prose, Caldwell mines the deepest levels of devotion, and courage…
This book is a literary historical novel. It is set in Britain immediately after World War II, when people – gay, straight, young, and old - are struggling to get back on track with their lives, including their love lives. Because of the turmoil of the times, the number of…
I'm a classically trained Shakespearian actor who has spent a lifetime researching Tudor and Stuart times, imbibing their language, customs, and idiosyncrasies. As an actor, I'm trained to get inside my characters' heads and dedicate myself to their intentions. Also, as an actor, I've come to relish language and recognize what makes a good phrase, paragraph, and/or book. I not only perform the Bard, but I've also taught his rhetorical stylings to countless people. I love language and admire writers who use it elegantly. They say, "Write what you know." I know Shakespeare and the Elizabethan era inside and out. One's life can be changed by a book; the ones I've recommended have changed mine.
I loved this book for its humanity and the language she used to pithily emphasize characters and situations. There was not an excess word employed. She compassionately realized every character and gave them wisdom, angst, and a tragic sense of loss. I found it utterly absorbing and have reread it several times.
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'One of the most emotionally truthful novels I have ever read' DAISY BUCHANAN 'Almost every line glows with even-handed wisdom - a superb novel, beautifully put together' DAILY MAIL 'An invaluably moving book' JULIET NICOLSON 'One to read first for the story and then to re-read at leisure and marvel at how real these people feel' ERIN KELLY 'Penetrating, intelligent, humane, funny too ... Smart and powerfully alive'…
