10 books like Woman on the Edge of Time

The clue’s in the title of this one: in Le Guin’s high-concept future (set on the moon of Anarres, though it’s effectively a stand-in for what Earth could one day be like), human beings are…free. Free from materialism, the wage system, resource hoarding, political one-upmanship, rampant industrialism and all those fantastically capitalist things that have turned our planet into a dystopian factory. The anarcho-syndicalism of Anarres may not appeal to everyone’s tastes, but The Dispossessed offers a fascinating look at how a society that puts the collective ahead of personal desires could work in practice.

The Divided Self kick-started my search for the truth of the human condition. It taught me that I didn't have to follow the life laid out for me and that I was expected to follow. Through it I discovered that I was not the only person trapped in a world and struggling to make sense of the bizarre and contradictory reality around me, that lied and lied about existence continually. Further books by him reinforced this awareness of the illogic of it all, including The Politics of Experience, The Self and Others, and Knots. I was Brer Rabbit, caught in the honey trap of the tar baby and this book showed me that.

C. J. Jung stood large on the world scene. Freud, much his senior and a household name when they met, was at first a father figure, Freud thought of Jung as natural heir to his psychoanalytic method, Jung’s ultimate rejection of its central tenets led in the end to their break.

Jung’s analysis was sought by distinguished people all over the world. During W. W. II the CIA had him develop a psychological profile of Hitler.

Jung’s Collected Works consists of 19 volumes. A less daunting way to get acquainted with him is through the famous MDR, (Memories, Dreams, Reflections) dictated late in life. The book focuses entirely on Jung’s interior life—his thoughts, his influences, his visions, and Ideations. It was in these that Jung saw his life’s meaning.

What would happen if instead of throwing people into jail-like mental wards and hammering them with tranquilizing drugs, we instead welcomed them into home-like settings and spent time listening and caring, patiently giving them time and space to explore the emotional roots of their crisis? Psychiatrist Loren Mosher did just that in the Soteria House research project in the 1970s and 80s, and the results were clear: people do better without medications and with listening and caring in a safe environment instead.

Mosher was the first chief of the Center for Studies of Schizophrenia of the National Institutes of Mental Health but you’ve probably never heard of him – his innovative project proved that psychosis can be healed more effectively without medication and outside of  hospitals, but came at a time when biological and pharmaceutical solutions – and the profits they generate – came to dominate psychiatry, so he was… show more.

Hearing voices is considered a symptom of schizophrenia and can quickly lead to hospital lockup, medication, and being shunned by society as “mentally ill.” In this fascinating account, Smith reveals the truth about this experience we call “madness” – hearing voices is actually a normal human experience across history and culture. Poets, religious visionaries, people spending time alone or grieving – even Freud, Gandhi, actor Anthony Hopkins, singer Lady Gaga -- all heard voices, and anyone under the right kind of stress can hear voices. The problem only arises when people hear distressing voices and have nowhere to go for help other than being treated as ill by a doctor.

Psychiatry made the catastrophic mistake of calling homosexuality a mental disease, and for many decades LGBT people were abducted, confined in hospitals, drugged, tortured, and killed for the mental crime of being different. Today people who hear voices are also… show more.

I fell in love with this book the moment I read its opening pages, and the love affair continued up to the final pages and still to this day. China Miéville does weird like no one else. And in this, his multi-award-winning sophomore novel and the first book in the Bas-Lag series, Miéville intelligently fuses a stunning array of genres and modes, from steampunk science fantasy to dystopian and gothic science fiction. So much of this book has lived in my subconscious for decades, inspiring a love for bug-punk, gangland-dystopian worlds with complex and flawed characters. The best book to read when looking to enter the world of weird fiction and gothic sci-fi. 

An exploration into the future consequences of China’s one-child policy, I discovered An Excess Male by accident, finding a battered second-hand copy in a local Berlin bookstore. And what a find! Maggie Shen King’s novel skillfully weaves together the narratives of its four protagonists, all of whom are part of — or about to join — a single group marriage. With this future China housing far more men than women, such marriages are increasingly common, yet the novel doesn’t limit itself, as it also explores the status of closeted gay men and people with autism. It’s a horrifyingly real and addictive story.

An immensely sweet novel with a focus on Japanese homophobia, Twinkle Twinkle follows the gay male Mutsuki and straight woman Shoko as they enter into a sham marriage. Though it shares some themes with An Excess Male, the novel isn’t speculative, instead providing insights into contemporary Japanese society and social customs — particularly the stifling sense of conformity. Yet despite cultural pressures, the fascinating three-way dynamic between Mutsuki, Shoko, and Mutsuki’s boyfriend carries the tale and will leave a lasting impression.

I might be obsessed with science and speculative fiction, but I rarely venture over to the fantasy section of the bookstore. I don’t know, maybe there’s just too much gender-stereotyping and absolute monarchy for my taste — so I’ll be ever-grateful for being gifted a copy of Tales of Nevèrӱon. Exploring polyamory without resorting to vampires, Samuel R. Delany’s novel looks at queer relationships in a manner much like Woman on the Edge of Time and was published later that same decade. It’s fantasy unlike anything else I’ve read.

There is never enough alternate history. Particularly alternate history that doesn’t focus either on the Nazis winning World War II or the South winning the American Civil War. Thankfully we have Egalia’s Daughters, yet another forward-thinking novel from the seventies. Set in a world where gender norms are swapped around entirely, its male characters wear special testicle bras and adorn their beards with flowers (I do like that last part). Of course, this woman-dominated world is no less homophobic than our own, and as part of their gender rebellion, the men form relationships with one another, in various configurations. It’s a delightful read, with its gender reversals a mirror reflection of our own society.