It’s no surprise to hear I’m drawn to stories featuring outsiders, people who don’t / won’t conform and are fed up trying to force themselves into the narrow roles society offers. Folk who slide under the radar, and never make it into history books (which is all of us, right?). This springs from being an outsider myself, the weird kid who didn’t fit. I’ve chosen novels where the LGBTQ+ characters strive and struggle but do not die tragically. Put simply, they are real people, complete with flaws and strengths. These books are your very own Time Machines: wonderful stories to transport you into the past.
Set in 19th century England, this novel is aimed at Young Adult readers and is a reminder that a good read is simply good, whatever age bracket it’s aimed at. It resonated with my own teenage struggles to break free of restrictive expectations – even though mine were trifling compared to what the heroine Louisa has to go through! She resists the restrictions of Victorian society and the limited choices available to women, and is locked up in an asylum. It prompted me to read more about the era and discovered the shocking truth of how this really happened to women who stepped out of line…
Seventeen-year-old Louisa Cosgrove has never enjoyed the life of the pampered, protected life girls of wealth were expected to follow in nineteenth century England. It was too confining. She would have much rather been like her older brother, allowed to play marbles, go to school, become a doctor. But little does she know how far her family would go to kill her dreams and desires. Until one day she finds herself locked away in an insane asylum and everyone--the doctors and nurses--insist on calling her Lucy Childs, not Louisa Cosgrove. Surely this is a mistake. Surely her family will rescue…
I’m an archivist, really, masquerading as a writer. For my day job, I am in charge of archives from across England’s Royal County of Berkshire, spanning from the twelfth century to the present day. I have care of collections from Reading Gaol – of Oscar Wilde fame, the conservators of the River Thames, and also Broadmoor Hospital. The latter was built in 1863 as the first criminal lunatic asylum for England and Wales. It’s a place where true crime and social history interact. My book tries to paint a picture of individuals who did dreadful things but also had a life beyond their mental illness.
In England, the Victorian asylums were built as beacons of hope, infused with optimism. But by the late 20th century virtually all of them had gone, unloved and unmourned. So what happened? Peter Barham takes you through the rise and fall of England’s national mental health service.
Though they had mostly all been closed by the turn of the century, the passing of the old Victorian asylums is still a matter of enduring controversy. First published almost thirty years ago, in this acclaimed book Peter Barham draws on examples from history, the contemporary mental health scene, and his own extensive research, to examine the changing fortunes of mental patients in the era of the asylum and beyond. Barham argues that an obsession with severe and enduring mental health problems should be a matter of urgent social obligation and concern. In a prologue to this new edition, he…
This is a special perc I get - getting to read and trumpet a book that won't come out until December 1! My friend Adam Strassberg has finished his long-awaited novella, just in time for Christmas.
Lost on the urban December streets, homeless Joshua navigates the boundary between the intransigence of his own religious fervor and capitalist disdain for what he has become, all the while suffering a mental health crisis that is alternately a blessing and a curse. In this “what if” parable for the present day, our tortured hero lands once again in a psychiatric ward known only as 5C4. But this time, he meets toymaker Nick. And together, they make choices that surprise the reader at every turn. On all fronts, author and retired psychiatrist Adam Strassberg knows whereof he speaks. December on 5C4 is a compelling read, sure to spur discussion well beyond the Christmas season!
December on 5C4 is a vibrant tale of magical realism set during the Christmas season, weaving together threads of Jewish folklore, New Testament narratives, and Santa Claus legends. This story unfolds in the unique environment of an urban psychiatric hospital, where the boundaries between reality and the supernatural blur. As the winter holidays progress, Josh and Nick—two very different patients, one with similarities to Jesus and the other Santa—find themselves on an unexpected journey of self-discovery and transformation. Their evolving friendship and shared experiences challenge them to reconcile their pasts, embrace their identities, and navigate the complexities of mental illness.…
In addition to being an author, I’m a literature professor and a psychoanalyst; I have worked in prisons and psychiatric hospitals. I have also been a psychiatric patient. I’m fascinated by narrative, and by the way we use language to make sense of our own experiences and to connect with other people.
This is a recent reissue of a book first published in 1974 and long out of print. Bette Howland gives us a vivid and honest account of her time in Ward 3 of a Chicago psychiatric hospital after a serious suicide attempt in her late twenties. I was moved by the moments of communion, camaraderie and even comedy the narrator shares with her fellow patients. Having said that, Ward 3 is a terrible place. The “treatments” are also punishments. The narrator confronts the ward’s alienation with clear, unsentimental detachment. I was absorbed by her struggle to retain an element of dignity in the face of the hospital’s fatally indifferent bureaucracy.
An extraordinary portrait of a brilliant mind on the brink: A new edition of the 1974 memoir by the author of the acclaimed collection Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage. With an introduction by Yiyun Li.
“For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin—real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way. Something to be got through first, some unfinished business; time still to be served, a debt to be paid. Then life could begin. At last it had dawned on me that these obstacles were my life.”
Throughout my life I found the trick to getting through rough patches meant isolating dark thoughts. I got them out by creating something (artworks, poems, stories), and looked forward to new horizons, though these works could easily be misinterpreted by those around me. When I was fifteen, after my father died and we were forced off the farm, I created a series of disturbing drawings that won the school's art prize and were displayed at graduation. A friend of my mother saw the exhibit and said, “Oh Dorothy, I’m so sorry.” It gave us a laugh later when Mother realized this method of cleansing beat finding a psychiatrist, and the cost couldn’t be beat.
This story is a twist on a familiar Lewis Carroll tale.
It is unsettling in a dementia-like way, spinning the reader from the known into the unknown with just enough of the old story to keep them from tipping completely off balance, hope and dark humor always alive.
This book helped me with the twisting of fact and fiction in my own books, where I used many of my own family incidents (and fears), but gave them to fictional characters with their own generational slant.
In a warren of crumbling buildings and desperate people called the Old City, there stands a hospital with cinderblock walls which echo with the screams of the poor souls inside.In the hospital, there is a woman. Her hair, once blonde, hangs in tangles down her back. She doesn't remember why she's in such a terrible place-just a tea party long ago, and long ears, and blood...Then, one night, a fire at the hospital gives the woman a chance to escape, tumbling out of the hole that imprisoned her, leaving her free to uncover the truth about what happened to her…
I am the ultimate dilettante. I consume huge amounts of history, literature, and current events. I am not interested in dumbing down what I write. I am endlessly curious and assume my readers are also. I started writing during the pandemic and have not quit. I have completed three novels and have been an avid reader my entire life. Join me!
I really enjoyed this historical mystery novel. It is an early example of a narrative being told from multiple perspectives, some unreliable; beware!
The novel is a classic with beautiful language and sentence construction. I feel there is an elegance and craft given to this narrative rarely found in today’s commercial mystery genre. Sit back and enjoy being seduced by Wilkie Collins.
HarperCollins is proud to present its range of best-loved, essential classics.
'The woman who first gives life, light, and form to our shadowy conceptions of beauty, fills a void in our spiritual nature that has remained unknown to us till she appeared.'
One of the earliest works of 'detective' fiction with a narrative woven together from multiple characters, Wilkie Collins partly based his infamous novel on a real-life eighteenth century case of abduction and wrongful imprisonment. In 1859, the story caused a sensation with its readers, hooking their attention with the ghostly first scene where the mysterious 'Woman in White'…
I’m an archivist, really, masquerading as a writer. For my day job, I am in charge of archives from across England’s Royal County of Berkshire, spanning from the twelfth century to the present day. I have care of collections from Reading Gaol – of Oscar Wilde fame, the conservators of the River Thames, and also Broadmoor Hospital. The latter was built in 1863 as the first criminal lunatic asylum for England and Wales. It’s a place where true crime and social history interact. My book tries to paint a picture of individuals who did dreadful things but also had a life beyond their mental illness.
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.
“A must-read for those who work in the mental health industry, I think most people will find it both eye-opening and provocative.” ―The Guardian
The phenomenon of false allegations of mental illness is as old as our first interactions as human beings. But it took the confluence of the law and medical science, mad-doctors, alienists, priests and barristers, to raise the matter to a level of “science,” capable of being used by conniving relatives, “designing families” and scheming neighbors to destroy people who found themselves in the way, people whose removal could provide their survivors with money or property or…
A lifelong horror fan, I have always been fascinated by haunted landscapes and creepy buildings. My childhood in the Midlands of England prepared me for my career as a horror writer and filmmaker with its abundance of spooky ruins and foggy canal paths. I have since explored ancient sites all across the U.K. and Europe and my novels are inspired by these field trips into the uncanny, where the contemporary every day rubs shoulders with the ancient and occult. Places become characters in their own right in my work and I think this list of books celebrates that. I hope you find them as disturbing and thought-provoking as I have.
This book stayed with me long after I made it my Summer read that year during a blisteringly hot July. It details a darkly destructive love affair between Stella, the wife of a man running an asylum, and Edgar, a murderer who is incarcerated there. McGrath’s vivid descriptions of the asylum and its grounds reframe the gothic tradition through an unflinching, contemporary lens. The doomed obsession of the novel’s star cross’d lovers reminds us that our own hearts can become institutionalised if we do not balance passion with compromise.
A story of self-obsession narrated by the point of view of a psychiatrist, published as a Penguin Essential for the first time.
As a psychiatrist in a top-security mental hospital in the 1950s, Peter Cleave has made a study of what he calls 'the catastrophic love affair characterized by sexual obsession.' His experience is extensive, and he is never surprised. Until, that is, he comes reluctantly to accept that the wife of one of his colleagues has embarked on such an affair...
For as long as I can remember, I have always been fascinated by the history of the insane asylum. Aside from the sometimes barbaric treatment of patients in the asylums, I’ve discovered that there was a genuine longing to help these people. The asylum has always had such a dark image associated with it and while that may be true, I’ve always been keen on learning more about why things were done the way they were. I decided that one of the best ways for me to learn was to write about it myself and it taught me so much about the human condition, both good and bad.
I am recommending this book by Mark Davis because it was such an intimate look at the West Riding Pauper Asylum, which I reference in my own book.
The stories are incredibly sad, but they greatly reflect on what life was like for these individuals. It also has some of the most beautiful photos I have seen.
I highly recommend it to anyone who is interested in this time period. I just wish the book was longer!
Almost forgotten by time, tucked away beyond the sight of the passerby, there is a little piece of old England, which was for many years a forgotten wilderness. If it were not for a weather-beaten plaque on the gatepost few would realise that beyond the rusted gates there lies, in unmarked paupers' graves, 2,861 former patients of the once formidable Menston Asylum.
To be admitted to a lunatic asylum in the nineteenth century was fraught with danger, and in many cases meant a life sentence hidden away from society. It is estimated as many as 30 per cent of the…
I’ve always had a fascination with the past and how it interacts with the present. I grew up playing in the house and grounds of a spooky old house that was a convalescent home for World War One soldiers and had stood there for centuries before that. At university my essays always strayed into the supernatural. I studied time slips and gothic fiction in English Literature and my history dissertation was about people who believed their children were fairy changelings. When I’m not combining my passion for historical mysteries and ghostly goings on in my writing, I collect old postcards and explore crumbling cemeteries for inspiration.
This is Taylor’s debut novel and like my book, the time slip element takes us back to World War 1 in 1916. Louisa is admitted to Coldbrook Hall Psychiatric hospital after an accident in which she is believed to have tried to commit suicide. Whilst there she slips back to her days at a hospital treating wounded soldiers and falls in love with Robert Lovett. Not only must she find a way to remain with him, but she must find him when he is taken prisoner on the Western Front. The detailed descriptions of life in the trenches really brought the horrors of WW1 to life. Taylor has researched this area thoroughly and her vivid writing style allows the reader to experience the cold, muddy, and rat-infested conditions for themselves.
The author’s observations on everyday life during the war add interest and are sometimes surprising, for instance, the fact that…
*Shortlisted for the Eharmony/Orion Love Story Prize
*Longlisted for the Exeter Novel Prize
A strange twist of fate connects a British soldier fighting in the First World War in 1916 and a young woman living in modern-day England a century later, in this haunting, literary time travel novel.
Two people, two battles: one against the invading Germans on the battlefields of 1916 France, the other against a substandard, uncaring mental health facility in modern-day England. Part war story, part timeslip, part love story – and at the same time a meditation on the themes of war, mental illness, identity and…
