The most recommended books about insanity

I normally I don’t read mystery thrillers, but somehow this book got to me. I couldn’t stop reading, it held me captive till the end, even though I thought, right from the beginning, who the awful blood-thirsty killer might be. But still, I was pushed back again, could it really be him? There were so many different turns and twists, that you really couldn’t be sure of anything.

Mariah, the innocent schoolgirl was put into a dangerous twist; she nearly couldn’t get out again, shutting herself up to cope with the unexpected. And then you were transported into the mind of the schoolgirl killer. What a blood-thirsty individual, killing schoolgirls for practice then killing Mariah’s friend, only to get to her. Everyone longed for justice. But will justice come?

Very cleverly done, J.E. Spina. She put family values and support into the foreground.

This poorly known novel by a television writer deserves more attention. It concerns a writer on a TV sitcom that is plagued by an impossible actress/star who makes everybody’s lives miserable by her egotistical behavior. The revenge that the writer, Jimmy Hoy, contrives for her is both funny and appropriate. There are laugh-out-loud moments in this book that will make you roar.

More than anything else I have read, this book helped me understand the relationship between crime and mental illness in the United States. The book explore some really fascinating case studies (for example, school shooter Kip Kinkel).

But the bigger contribution is how the authors sort out the core ideological approaches of the law versus the social sciences (including psychology and psychiatry.) They show how the law is rooted in philosophical and religious ideas about good, evil, and free will. In contrast, the social sciences use complex empirical observations and theories to explain human behavior.

The best chapter, in my opinion, is “The ‘Mad’ or ‘Bad’ Debate Concerning Sex Offenders.” It is the only thing I’ve ever read that has helped me understand why our society singles out sex offenders for demonization.

The Big Book of Hell is the holy grail of dark humor, packaged perfectly in a comic format. Growing up as a sarcastic kid from Brooklyn, this was the first humor book I read that I felt was aimed directly at my sensibilities. It has a very unique “substance-over-style” aesthetic that is striking and somehow managed to become widely identifiable. It dances around subjects, poking fun at the absurdities of the world it was written in. It really showed me that you don’t need to be a conventionally great artist to publish comics and that there is a market for dark humor comics. The book, which reads almost like a variety show, opened my eyes to ways to play with structure of an individual comic and a whole book.

I like to write about public Victorian asylums – where the bulk of English people with mental illnesses were admitted.  But the counterpoint is the private system, where the poor, rich mad spent their time in nice surroundings with wacky treatments. Sarah Wise captures this perfectly through a real-life investigation of the people in the attic – think Jane Eyre, or The Woman in White – and how the law sought to protect them.

Lawyer Michael Perlin was, for decades, lead author of the seminal, annually updated reference volumes on developments in U.S. mental health laws and precedent commitment cases.

The Hidden Prejudice is written for general readers; many pages are still two-thirds reference footnotes, but Perlin allows himself a more personal tone that makes the core text riveting and disturbing.

Dispelling out-of-date notions that people can only be locked up if they’re physically threatening and dangerous, Perlin demonstrates with stark warning how criteria for detaining people have become shockingly broad, most judges have abandoned any requirement that psychiatrists meet even basic standards of science, average commitment hearings function virtually outside the law, and courts grant psychiatric institutions horrifying degrees of immunity for abuses.

You’ll never again hear calls to expand forced psychiatric treatment in the same way.

Tolkin doesn’t hit you with belly laughs so much as tickle the upper corners of your mind with his knowing take on the mores and follies of the Hollywood of the late 1980s. (Of special interest to me, as that’s the moment I arrived there to begin my own TV and film career.) The trenchant satire is exemplified by the crime at its center: studio exec Griffin Mill, badgered by threats from some anonymous screenwriter he’s mistreated, focuses his attention on a different C-list scribe and winds up strangling him to death. Get it?  In a business full of writer-killing executives, Tolkin’s big-wig antihero literally kills a writer.

Gabriela was a Chilean poet-diplomat, educator, and humanist, who became the first Latin American author to receive a Nobel Prize in Literature. Her poetry often focuses on dark, humane themes that undoubtedly reflect on traumatic episodes that she had personally endured. 

Gabriela has the knack of scratching the surface, which is potent enough to get all your senses actively experiencing the emotions and character she puts forth. The poems resonate on a deep level, offering a compelling clarity of life with its tragedy and complications. The women depicted here are anything but mad; some would say entirely strong-willed and intense, with a collected control and a modernistic sense of independence.

I gotta say, Noel-Anne Brennan needs to be better known.

This book (along with its sequel, The Blood of the Land) makes up a compelling duology featuring Rilsin, the rightful ruler of her country, who pledges the throne to her cousin Sithli in an effort to stop the bloodshed in her land.

But her cousin is insane and could care less about being a good ruler, which means Rilsin may need to break her promise to help her country—except Sithli also holds Rilsin’s baby hostage.

Wonderful, strong characters, an engaging story, super easy to read. What more could you ask for? If you decide to read this, set aside a few uninterrupted hours. You can thank me later. :)

When I first picked up “Haunted” by Chuck Palahniuk, I wasn’t ready to have my boundaries pushed as a reader. The book is a Chinese Boxes type of narrative, with several short stories taking place inside a larger meta-narrative. The plot follows a group of authors trapped together inside a creative retreat, where they agree to tell stories to pass the time.

Each short story reflects a twisted, often disturbing exploration of “the quest for fame”, and what each author is willing to do to be remembered. Themes like vanity, corruption, legacy and exploitation made me look inward and challenge my own assumptions about fame and pride.

Palahniuk spares no detail in using graphic language to shock you. More than once, I found myself inspired to confront the darker aspects of being an author, particularly my own tendency to self-destruct in pursuit of “the perfect story”. This novel isn’t for… show more.