Books like A Long Way Down — picked by fans

I like An Unquiet Mind because Kay Redfield Jameson tells her story of being a college professor while living with bipolar disorder.

She writes as if talking to a friend that she can trust, and she took me on her journey of incredible highs and grandiose thoughts and devastating lows of debilitating depression. I, too, live with bipolar disorder, and as I read this book, I saw myself. It helped me realize I am not alone. It gave me hope that I, too, would come out the other side.

I keep this book close and pick it up often. It is an old friend that helped me heal.

Illusion. Women’s framing. Adrift in a world everyone thinks is perfect. Living the glamorous life others want. Being the thing men desire to have, to own, as long as the veneer holds. Dealing with mental illness that people explain away because all the tinsel is just dressing and sparkles, but if you lean on it, it parts, and you find yourself falling through the space.

Although ‘they’ say they care, they don’t, and no one wants to hear the truth, they only want pretend. Within the first five pages, we understand what’s going on inside her, that she has something to hide, and that she’s willing to lie about who she really is. In chapter one, we discover that her best friend, Doreen, doesn’t really know her name. We see the world through her eyes, interspaced with an actual conversation that calls the world a lie and her own framing… show more.

I fell into this story with the first line and barely came up for air until I was done.

I’m not sure I’ve ever read a book filled with so much beautiful and tragic truth, or an ending that filled me with so much optimism. Thousands have written gorgeous reviews about the story, the characters, the writing—so I won’t even attempt that here. 

These lines, from the book, are among the most beautiful and meaningful to me: “If you are surrounded by those who call what you are different instead of beautiful. If your mind or body has cried out for peace and acknowledgement and understanding, just know…You are part of an infinite family. The people who have been through terrible things and survived them. If you are reading these words, you WON today.”

For years, I refused to re-embrace Holden Caulfield, because Mark David Chapman, John Lennon’s assassin, declared it inspired him to bloodshed. I’m glad I did, getting the juices circulating for my novel.

Holden, manic-depressed over his brother’s death, cut loose from his prep school, may speak in a stream-of-consciousness babble, but he enunciated an old-soul contempt of Ivy-League elitism that reverberates today.

When Holden declares, “The more expensive a school, the more crooks it has,” it’s a literary MRI on American classism still tearing us asunder.

I can still remember so much from this book. A great stat Hawes included was that in the year 1870, 90 percent of upper-class New Yorkers lived in townhouses or other types of single-family homes. By 1930, 90 percent lived in apartment buildings or “French flats,” as they were sometimes called. Basically, almost alone among American cities, New York chose to emulate Paris in its model of urbanism rather than London.

New York developers built and sold “French flats” that were large and ostentatious, like the Ansonia and the Dakota, which are still there today. These iconic apartment buildings were built along the streetcar and subway lines. Hawes was a writer for The New Yorker, so this is very readable.

A deep dive into culture, internal conflict, and the struggle to overcome external challenges. The characters in this book were deep and interesting. Their struggle was heartbreaking, and there was nothing you could do to fix the system they were in. They never gave up, even when all hope was lost. 

I loved this book because, well, Paris—what’s not to love?—and at a micro level, the setting is an apartment with attics, spyholes, and lots of stairs. I’ve always wanted to live in a house with a hidden doorway, and this was exactly that kind of place.

Jess goes to the apartment to find her half-brother but instead finds a bunch of creepy inhabitants who seem reluctant to tell her where he is. Lucy’s novels feel like modern-day Agatha Christies, with a locked-room vibe and defined set of suspects, and this is no exception, right up my alley.

This book has so much detail to keep the reader fascinated. It’s like looking inside a doll’s house with its constant activity from all the families and residents living there and what they get up to over the course of a day. Each page is a gem and the intricate detail keeps you engrossed in their lives. Adults would enjoy this book too. I still have my well-loved copy from 1995.

This is a complex and overwhelming book. It covers the detailed contents and history of the rooms and characters in a large apartment block in Paris. Some of the rooms and characters interact in a complex, sometimes dark way. It is a long book, but I found it enthralling all the way through. If you like a detailed, complex, baroque book where you have to read carefully and make connections, this is for you.

Okay, fine. Clementine—a not-so-common third grader—is having a disastrous week. But maybe can she find a way to make it better. Her attempts to make that happen, despite yucky eggs, being sent to the principal’s office, and making everyone mad at her will have both adults and kids laughing out loud. Once you read this first book in the series, you’ll want to read them all.