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Book cover of Strangers to Ourselves: Unsettled Minds and the Stories That Make Us

Charity Gourley

From Charity's 3 favorite reads in 2024.

Unknown Author Why Charity loves this book

What a well structured and brilliant book! Aviv explores the roots and treatment of mental illness and asks the question, where does diagnosis, societal conditions, treatment, and our sense of self collide, overlap and blur. Sometimes a book comes along and I think, I wish I wrote this - this is one of those.

By Rachel Aviv ,

Why should I read it?

4 authors picked Strangers to Ourselves as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The highly anticipated debut from the award-winning New Yorker writer Rachel Aviv is a ground-breaking exploration of illness and the mind

Strangers to Ourselves is a compassionate, courageous and riveting look at the ways we talk about and understand ourselves in periods of crisis and distress. Drawing on unpublished journals and letters, along with deep reporting, it follows people who feel as if they have reached the limits of psychiatric explanations for who they are. Their diagnosis, while giving their experiences a name, also shapes their sense of what their future may look like-and their identities, too.

Rachel Aviv is…


Book cover of Only My Horses Know

Troon Harrison Author Of Cold Freedom

From my list on brave kids and horses.

Why am I passionate about this?

I was four years old when I was given a pony. The freedom of roaming the countryside with her was amazing, and I was hooked! All horse breeds have supported humans; their strength and speed have enabled farming, war, travel, and settlement. Horses feature in the art, religion, and sports of diverse cultures. My Historical Horse series contains three books—each one is a completely different story about a specific breed of horse, and a fictional girl who loved it and depended on it, even to stay alive. Writing the books was like time-traveling with horses!

Troon's book list on brave kids and horses

Troon Harrison Why Troon loves this book

The healing power of horses is used nowadays in formal equine therapy, but young people have always known their horses could nurture them. I love this book because it shows how a horse can provide support in a situation as challenging and stigmatizing as the mental illness called bipolar. Horses provide a wonderful way for readers to come to terms with such a complex topic. I love the premise that horses help kids to cope with human difficulties. 

By Cinda Jo Bauman ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Only My Horses Know as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 9, 10, 11, and 12.

What is this book about?

Life on a Montana horse ranch has always been the best for twelve-year-old Kylie Hannigan. She bonds with the horses, rides them with her best friend Joey, and helps her mom train them. Plus she barrel races her favorite horse, Kiwi, and with plenty of practice and grit, they will definitely beat her rival Olivia this year.

But then, something starts happening with Kylie’s mom. She sleeps all the time, and Kylie has to do the chores, the training, and all the care for the horses--and it’s too much! At least it’s summer, so she doesn’t have to worry about…


Book cover of Broken Mirror

Broken Mirror by Cody Sisco,

A fractured mind or a global conspiracy? Uncovering the truth can be hell when nobody believes you… and you can’t even trust yourself. 

"A fantastic science fiction thriller with a sincere and important message.”—Kirkus Reviews. 

“A breathtaking, deeply dark alternate-history Earth with complex characters, layered worldbuilding, and twist after twist…

Book cover of Ten Rules for Faking It

Barbara Claypole White Author Of The Unfinished Garden

From my list on romance to feature characters with mental illness.

Why am I passionate about this?

The two people I love most, my husband and my son, manage obsessive-compulsive disorder. Their struggles constantly inspire me and illustrate the courage it takes to navigate everyday life with an invisible disability. We don’t talk enough about that courage. Instead, society passes judgment and shares OCD jokes. There’s nothing funny about a chronic, potentially fatal illness that demands lifelong management. After all, we don’t laugh at diabetics, and people aren’t defined by their disabilities. (Think of Helen Keller’s achievements!) My passion is to create characters who chip away at the stigma, shame, and stereotypes of mental illness. They also prove the mantra, “You are not your disorder.” Amen.

Barbara's book list on romance to feature characters with mental illness

Barbara Claypole White Why Barbara loves this book

Kudos to the author for creating a charming romance that brings readers deep inside crippling social anxiety. Taking it one step further, the novel shows how effectively someone—the heroine—can mask mental illness. Here is the heartbreaking reality: anxiety is easily hidden and often misread as anti-social behavior.

By Sophie Sullivan ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Ten Rules for Faking It as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'Impossible to read without smiling - escapist romantic comedy at its finest' Lauren Layne

'Once you start reading, you won't be able to put it down' Lyssa Kay Adams

What happens when your love life becomes the talk of the town?

As birthdays go, this year Everly Dean has hit rock bottom.

If catching her boyfriend cheating with his assistant wasn't enough, Everly's rant about Simon the Snake, a.k.a. Cheating Ex, accidentally being broadcast live on the radio really sealed the deal...

When public humiliation turns her into a viral sensation with a string of potential dates, and suddenly there's…


Book cover of Animal Crackers: Stories

Jess Bowers Author Of Horse Show

From my list on animal lovers who are also history geeks.

Why am I passionate about this?

As a fiction writer and animal studies scholar, I’m always looking for strange historical anecdotes about human/animal relationships and literary works that help me view humanity’s complex historical relationship with our fellow creatures through fresh eyes. As these books show, whenever humans write about animals, we also write about personhood, bodily autonomy, coexistence, partnership, symbiosis, spectacle, sentience, and exploitation—themes perpetually relevant to what it means to be human!

Jess' book list on animal lovers who are also history geeks

Jess Bowers Why Jess loves this book

Hannah Tinti’s debut collection is a darkly funny book of stories about how people coexist with animals. The stories are both harrowing and heartfelt. Her sense of humor is just the right level of disturbing for me.

Slim’s Last Ride, the bizarre tale of a little boy convinced his pet rabbit can fly, narrated by his equally unwell mother, realistically depicts mental illness and dysfunction.

How To Revitalize the Snake in Your Life is an icy revenge fable involving an ex-boyfriend’s abandoned snake, repurposed as dinner.

Unlike my other picks, many animals in this one are inconvenient, unwanted, or misunderstood by their human companions, leading to tension and danger. 

By Hannah Tinti ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Animal Crackers as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A zoo worker, cautiously washing down Marysue the elephant, thinks of the strange, grim stories his co-workers have told him about their lives. Giraffes in another zoo demand better living conditions and stage a mock group suicide to attract public notice. A girl escapes her repressive finishing school by running off with her lover to the African jungle but takes longer to give the slip to the private detectives hired by her father. Hannah Tinti s debut collection combines the virtues of traditional story-telling with utter freshness and modernity. Snake or dog, buffalo or turkey, the animals in her brilliant,…


Book cover of The Memory Palace

Karen Harmon Author Of Where Is My Happy Ending?: A Journey of No Regrets

From my list on mental health, addiction, and families.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have the expertise for this topic because I was raised in a loving home with a mother who struggled with bipolar disorder. At times my life was hilariously adventurous or heart-wrenchingly sad. Given little direction, I married an alcoholic and then went on to work at a Drug and Alcohol Treatment Center. I have fallen on hard times, but at the age of thirty-two, as a single mother collecting welfare, I managed to grief, heal and dig myself out, creating a rewarding life. I am optimistic, and I try to find humour in all things, especially after the tears and healing have subsided. My writing has brought me tremendous healing and joy.

Karen's book list on mental health, addiction, and families

Karen Harmon Why Karen loves this book

A harrowing and beautiful tale of two sisters growing up with a paranoid schizophrenic mother. The author describes a fine line between gentle artistic creativity and debilitating mental illness. The reader will come away with a better understanding of how deeply children are affected growing up in a dysfunctional and traumatic environment. A mother's love and a journey to forgiveness teach us the complex meaning of love.

By Mira Bartok ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Memory Palace as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In the tradition of The Glass Castle, two sisters confront schizophrenia in this New York Times bestselling poignant memoir about family and mental illness. Through stunning prose and original art, The Memory Palace captures the love between mother and daughter, the complex meaning of truth, and one family’s capacity for forgiveness.

*A Washington Post Best Book of the Year *
*The National Book Critics Circle Award Winner for Best Autobiography*

“People have abandoned their loved ones for much less than you’ve been through,” Mira Bartók is told at her mother’s memorial service. It is a poignant observation about the relationship…


Book cover of Mad Girl

Lottie Phillips Author Of Sunshine at Daisy's Guesthouse

From my list on to make you laugh and cry at the same time.

Why am I passionate about this?

I love romantic comedies with an emphasis on comedy. I’m not in love with sugary-sweet romance because I don’t think it’s true to life. I know that I laugh daily because my life is very 'Bridget Jones'. You know a book genre is strong when you can describe yourself as a character written in the late nineties. My own books are full of awkward moments, endearing observations, and humour that pushes the boundaries. Why? Because what are we if we are not fallible and vulnerable to whatever life throws at us?

Lottie's book list on to make you laugh and cry at the same time

Lottie Phillips Why Lottie loves this book

I picked this book up as I suffer with OCD and welcomed a genuine account of the effects it has on day-to-day life.

This, however, was just that but also gloriously uplifting and funny. I both cried and laughed, and sometimes a mixture! So, although this is non-fiction it follows Bryony’s journey as if following a protagonist in a novel, making it compelling and heart-wrenching.

By Bryony Gordon ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Mad Girl as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A new Sunday Times bestseller from Bryony Gordon, Telegraph columnist and author of the bestselling The Wrong Knickers. For readers who enjoyed Matt Haig's Reasons to Stay Alive and Ruby Wax's Sane New World, Mad Girl is a shocking, funny, unpredictable, heart-wrenching, raw and jaw-droppingly truthful celebration of life with mental illness.

'I loved it. A brilliant fast and funny and frank look at something that absolutely needs to be talked about in this way' Matt Haig

Bryony Gordon has OCD.

It's the snake in her brain that has told her ever since she was a teenager that her world…


Book cover of No, You're Crazy

No, You're Crazy by Jeff Beamish,

When sixteen-year-old Ashlee Sutton's home life falls apart, she is beset by a rare mental illness that makes her believe she's clairvoyant. While most people scoff at her, she begins demonstrating an uncanny knack for sometimes predicting the future, using what could either be pure luck or something more remarkable.…

Book cover of The End of Miracles: A Novel

C.J. Washington Author Of The Intangible

From my list on the fluidity of reality.

Why am I passionate about this?

My background is in computer science, specifically artificial intelligence. As a student, I was most interested in how our knowledge of the human brain could inform AI and vice versa. As such, I read as much neuroscience and psychology as I could and spent a lot of time thinking about how our minds create reality out of our senses. I always appreciate a novel that explores the fluidity of reality.

C.J.'s book list on the fluidity of reality

C.J. Washington Why C.J. loves this book

False Pregnancy, a mysterious and fascinating condition, is a topic of The End of Miracles, written by a psychiatrist who has witnessed the condition up close.

The novel examines how unfulfilled desire can meet with mental illness (or perhaps lead to mental illness) and alter our perceptions in ways that can have outsized effects on our behavior. The tale is told with great sympathy and respect for its protagonist and has no shortage of surprising twists.

By Monica Starkman ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The End of Miracles as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

International Book Awards 2016 finalist for literary fiction

The End of Miracles is a twisting, haunting story about the drastic consequences of a frustrated obsession.

A woman with a complex past wants nothing more than to become a mother, but struggles with infertility and miscarriage. She is temporarily comforted by a wish-fulfilling false pregnancy, but when reality inevitably dashes that fantasy, she falls into a depression so deep she must be hospitalized. The sometimes-turbulent environment of the psychiatry unit rattles her and makes her fear for her sanity, and she flees. Outside, she impulsively commits a startling act with harrowing…


Book cover of Joshua Lutz: Hesitating Beauty

Mona Simpson Author Of Commitment

From my list on books that tell a story of life with mental illness.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m Mona Simpson, the author of seven novels. I grew up with a mentally ill parent who struggled to support me, her only child, as a single mother. I saw firsthand the toll living in the world cost her. One of my first experiences of adulthood was a sense of relief in discovering that staying above water was manageable, even easy. Walking home from my first real job, seeing all the other people’s backs and legs hurry ahead of me, I liked being one of the many. I wondered if my mother could have ever felt that ease if there had been an alternative.

Mona's book list on books that tell a story of life with mental illness

Mona Simpson Why Mona loves this book

I found myself returning to the resonant images again and again. The book presents pictures of a young man’s mother throughout her life before her mental illness, and with it, and includes some bits of narrative, letters from her and from his father.

These exerpts allowed me to construct the story of a family’s tragedy, the evolution of a beautiful young woman into someone else, someone who was still, nevertheless, painfully loved. One of the typewritten paragraphs begins, “Right after you were born, your mother believed she had fallen in love with someone else.”

I felt the young photographer’s mission to understand and hold his love for his imperfect parents driving the book. It was not put together for me, the reader, but out of a driving necessity. We are nevertheless allowed to witness the young man’s struggle and evolution.

By Joshua Lutz ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Joshua Lutz as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Breaking down the structure of the photograph as truth and the book as narrative, Joshua Lutz's second monograph, HESITATING BEAUTY, it is an intimate portrait unlike other photographic models. Rethinking how photographs and text can function, Lutz blends family archives, interviews and letters with his own photographic practice seamlessly into a precious, fictitious experience of a life and family consumed by mental illness. Instead of showing us what it looks like, HESITATING BEAUTY is able to play with our own conceptions of reality to show us what it feels like.

Joshua Lutz: ""Holding on so tightly to what I believed…


Book cover of Where You'll Find Me

Risa Nyman Author Of Swallowed by a Secret

From my list on kids caught in a family crisis.

Why am I passionate about this?

Since I started reading, I gravitated to books with believable characters in real situations, because I could see myself in these stories. How would I cope in a family dealing with illness or death, breakups in relationships, money woes, and other crises that I read about? Realistic stories about family problems are relatable to everyone, and reading about them through the eyes of the children involved is so meaningful. That’s why when I started creative writing after I retired, I found my voice in the genre I loved to read as a kid. I write authentic stories about families presented with difficult issues for middle-grade readers (and adults).

Risa's book list on kids caught in a family crisis

Risa Nyman Why Risa loves this book

This next book is gritty in its authenticity. It isn’t for the faint of heart to read about the heartbreaking struggles of thirteen-year-old Anna Collette whose mother tries to take her life and is hospitalized. Anna has to live with her distant father, his new wife, and their baby where she doesn’t feel like part of the family. But the author gives us a warm and loving character in her stepmother who shows Della what family can be. I’m enthralled by true and complex characters in this book who represent the highs and lows of real life.

By Natasha Friend ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Where You'll Find Me as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 12, 13, 14, and 15.

What is this book about?

The beginning of the eighth grade is not what Anna thought it would be. Her lifelong best friend has ditched her for the cool kids, and her mum is in the hospital after swallowing a bottle of pills. Anna is also trying to reconnect with her dad who remarried and has a baby now. Ultimately, Anna finds friendship and camaraderie from some unlikely sources and learns that sometimes life leaves you feeling gobsmacked, but if you have the right people in your life to support you, you'll be just fine.


Book cover of Girl, Interrupted

Zarah Dara Author Of What The Quiet Knew

From my list on hidden trauma and the lives we never speak about.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m passionate about this theme because I grew up inside the kind of silence most people never see—the kind shaped by responsibility, fear, love, and the need to stay strong before you’re old enough to understand why. I’ve lived through the quiet wounds, the invisible burdens, and the unspoken grief that shaped every part of me. Stories like these make people like me feel less alone. They remind us that survival has its own language, and that the things we carry silently are worth naming. I write about quiet pain because it’s the world I came from, and the world I learned to rise out of.

Zarah's book list on hidden trauma and the lives we never speak about

Zarah Dara Why Zarah loves this book

I loved this book because it doesn’t shy away from the uncomfortable parts of the mind.

It made me feel less alone in the way certain emotions can overwhelm you—how the world can look normal on the outside even when everything inside is loud, tangled, or numb. Kaysen’s honesty struck me. I admired how she wrote about mental health with clarity but without shame.

The book made me sit with myself, reflect on my own quiet unravelings, and recognise how fragile and strong a person can be at the same time.

By Susanna Kaysen ,

Why should I read it?

4 authors picked Girl, Interrupted as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Futaro Uesugi is a second-year in high school, scraping to get by and pay off his family's debt. The only thing he can do is study, so when Futaro receives a part-time job offer to tutor the five daughters of a wealthy businessman, he can't pass it up. Little does he know, these five beautiful sisters are quintuplets, but the only thing they have in common is that they're all terrible at studying! At this rate, the sisters can't graduate, and Futaro must think of a plan that suits each of them - which feels hopeless when five-out-of-five of these…