100 Best Mental Health Books of All Time

We've ranked the best mental health books using expert recommendations, sales data, and millions of reader ratings. At Shortform, we know books. Our book guides are the best in the world. Learn why.

The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma book cover1

The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma

Bessel van der Kolk

5.0
• A New York Times Science Bestseller •

“Packed with science and human stories, the book is an intense read. . . . The struggle and resilience of [van der Kolk’s] patients is very moving.” —New Scientist


A pioneering researcher transforms our understanding of trauma and offers a bold new paradigm for healing


Trauma is a fact of life. Veterans and their families deal with the painful aftermath of comb
The Perks of Being a Wallflower book cover2

The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Stephen Chbosky

5.0
Read the cult-favorite coming of age story that takes a sometimes heartbreaking, often hysterical, and always honest look at high school in all its glory. Now a major motion picture starring Logan Lerman and Emma Watson, The Perks of Being a Wallflower is a funny, touching, and haunting modern classic.

The critically acclaimed debut novel from Stephen Chbosky, Perks follows observant “wallflower” C
Man's Search for Meaning book cover3

Man's Search for Meaning

Viktor E. Frankl

4.8
Man's Search for Meaning has riveted generations of readers with its descriptions of life in Nazi death camps and its lessons for spiritual survival. Between 1942 and 1945 psychiatrist Viktor Frankl labored in four different camps, including Auschwitz, while his parents, brother, and pregnant wife perished. Based on his own experience and the stories of his many patients, Frankl argues that we can
The Bell Jar book cover4

The Bell Jar

Sylvia Plath

4.8
Sylvia Plath's shocking, realistic, and intensely emotional novel about a woman falling into the grip of insanity.

Esther Greenwood is brilliant, beautiful, enormously talented, and successful, but slowly going under—maybe for the last time. In her acclaimed and enduring masterwork, Sylvia Plath brilliantly draws the reader into Esther's breakdown with such intensity that her insanity becomes palp
Turtles All the Way Down book cover5

Turtles All the Way Down

John Green

4.8
THE INSTANT #1 BESTSELLER IS NOW AVAILABLE IN PAPERBACK!

FEATURED ON 60 MINUTES and FRESH AIR

"So surprising and moving and true that I became completely unstrung." - The New York Times

Named a best book of the year by: TheNew York Times, NPR, TIME, Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, Entertainment Weekly, Southern Living, Publishers Weekly, BookPage, A.V. Club, Bustle, BuzzFeed, Vulture, and man
An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness book cover6

An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness

Kay Redfield Jamison

4.8
The personal memoir of a manic depressive and an authority on the subject describes the onset of the illness during her teenage years and her determined journey through the realm of available treatments.
7

It's Kind of a Funny Story

Ned Vizzini

4.8
Ambitious New York City teenager Craig Gilner is determined to succeed at life - which means getting into the right high school to get into the right job. But once Craig aces his way into Manhattan's Executive Pre-Professional High School, the pressure becomes unbearable. He stops eating and sleeping until, one night, he nearly kills himself.

Craig's suicidal episode gets him checked into a mental
8

All the Bright Places

Jennifer Niven

4.8
The Fault in Our Stars meets Eleanor and Park in this exhilarating and heart-wrenching love story about a girl who learns to live from a boy who intends to die.

Soon to be a major motion picture starring Elle Fanning!

Theodore Finch is fascinated by death, and he constantly thinks of ways he might kill himself. But each time, something good, no matter how small, stops him.

Violet Markey lives for th
Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed book cover9

Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed

Lori Gottlieb

4.7
One day, Lori Gottlieb is a therapist who helps patients in her Los Angeles practice. The next, a crisis causes her world to come crashing down. Enter Wendell, the quirky but seasoned therapist in whose office she suddenly lands. With his balding head, cardigan, and khakis, he seems to have come straight from Therapist Central Casting. Yet he will turn out to be anything but.

As Gottlieb explores
10

Thirteen Reasons Why

Jay Asher

4.6
You can’t stop the future.
You can’t rewind the past.
The only way to learn the secret . . . is to press play.


Clay Jensen returns home from school to find a strange package with his name on it lying on his porch. Inside he discovers several cassette tapes recorded by Hannah Baker–his classmate and crush–who committed suicide two weeks earlier. Hannah’s voice tells him that there are thirteen reason
Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness book cover11

Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness

Susannah Cahalan

4.6
An award-winning memoir and instant New York Times bestseller that goes far beyond its riveting medical mystery, Brain on Fire is the powerful account of one woman’s struggle to recapture her identity.

When twenty-four-year-old Susannah Cahalan woke up alone in a hospital room, strapped to her bed and unable to move or speak, she had no memory of how she’d gotten there. Days earlier, she had been o
Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine book cover12

Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine

Gail Honeyman

4.6
No one’s ever told Eleanor that life should be better than fine

Meet Eleanor Oliphant: she struggles with appropriate social skills and tends to say exactly what she’s thinking. Nothing is missing in her carefully timetabled life of avoiding unnecessary human contact, where weekends are punctuated by frozen pizza, vodka, and phone chats with Mummy.

But everything changes when Eleanor meets Raymond,
Girl, Interrupted book cover13

Girl, Interrupted

Susanna Kaysen

4.6
In 1967, after a session with a psychiatrist she'd never seen before, eighteen-year-old Susanna Kaysen was put in a taxi and sent to McLean Hospital. She spent most of the next two years on the ward for teenage girls in a psychiatric hospital as renowned for its famous clientele--Sylvia Plath, Robert Lowell, James Taylor, and Ray Charles--as for its progressive methods of treating those who could
Reasons to Stay Alive book cover14

Reasons to Stay Alive

Matt Haig

4.6
Matt Haig’s accessible and life-affirming memoir of his struggle with depression, and how his triumph over the illness taught him to live.

"Destined to become a modern classic." —Entertainment Weekly


Like nearly one in five people, Matt Haig suffers from depression. Reasons to Stay Alive is Matt’s inspiring account of how, minute by minute and day by day, he overcame the disease with the help of re
Educated book cover15
Tara Westover was 17 the first time she set foot in a classroom. Born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, she prepared for the end of the world by stockpiling home-canned peaches and sleeping with her "head-for-the-hills bag". In the summer she stewed herbs for her mother, a midwife and healer, and in the winter she salvaged in her father's junkyard.

Her father forbade hospitals, so Tara nev
16

Eliza and Her Monsters

Francesca Zappia

4.5
Her story is a phenomenon. Her life is a disaster.

In the real world, Eliza Mirk is shy, weird, and friendless. Online, she’s LadyConstellation, the anonymous creator of the wildly popular webcomic Monstrous Sea. Eliza can’t imagine enjoying the real world as much as she loves the online one, and she has no desire to try.

Then Wallace Warland, Monstrous Sea’s biggest fanfiction writer, transfers to
17

Every Last Word

Tamara Ireland Stone

4.5
If you could read my mind, you wouldn't be smiling.

Samantha McAllister looks just like the rest of the popular girls in her junior class. But hidden beneath the straightened hair and expertly applied makeup is a secret that her friends would never understand: Sam has Purely-Obsessional OCD and is consumed by a stream of dark thoughts and worries that she can't turn off.

Second-guessing every move,
Girl in Pieces book cover18

Girl in Pieces

Kathleen Glasgow

4.5
Charlotte Davis is in pieces. At seventeen she’s already lost more than most people lose in a lifetime. But she’s learned how to forget. The broken glass washes away the sorrow until there is nothing but calm. You don’t have to think about your father and the river. Your best friend, who is gone forever. Or your mother, who has nothing left to give you.

Every new scar hardens Charlie’s heart just a
Speak book cover19

Speak

Laurie Halse Anderson

4.4
The first ten lies they tell you in high school.

"Speak up for yourself—we want to know what you have to say."

From the first moment of her freshman year at Merryweather High, Melinda knows this is a big fat lie, part of the nonsense of high school. She is friendless, outcast, because she busted an end-of-summer party by calling the cops, so now nobody will talk to her, let alone listen to her. As
20

Wintergirls

Laurie Halse Anderson

4.4
“Dead girl walking,” the boys say in the halls.
“Tell us your secret,” the girls whisper, one toilet to another.
I am that girl.
I am the space between my thighs, daylight shining through.
I am the bones they want, wired on a porcelain frame.


Lia and Cassie are best friends, wintergirls frozen in matchstick bodies, competitors in a deadly contest to see who can be the skinniest. But what comes after s
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest book cover21

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Ken Kesey, John C. Reilly, et al

4.4
Tyrannical Nurse Ratched rules her ward in an Oregon State mental hospital with a strict and unbending routine, unopposed by her patients, who remain cowed by mind-numbing medication and the threat of electric shock therapy. But her regime is disrupted by the arrival of McMurphy – the swaggering, fun-loving trickster with a devilish grin who resolves to oppose her rules on behalf of his fellow inm
Fangirl book cover22

Fangirl

Rainbow Rowell

4.4
A coming-of-age tale of fan fiction, family and first love.

Cath is a Simon Snow fan.

Okay, the whole world is a Simon Snow fan..

But for Cath, being a fan is her life—and she’s really good at it. She and her twin sister, Wren, ensconced themselves in the Simon Snow series when they were just kids; it’s what got them through their mother leaving. Reading. Rereading. Hanging out in Simon Snow forums
Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things book cover23

Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things

Jenny Lawson

4.4
#1 New York Times Bestseller

In Furiously Happy, a humor memoir tinged with just enough tragedy and pathos to make it worthwhile, Jenny Lawson examines her own experience with severe depression and a host of other conditions, and explains how it has led her to live life to the fullest:

"I've often thought that people with severe depression have developed such a well for experiencing extreme emotion
How to Win Friends & Influence People book cover24

How to Win Friends & Influence People

Dale Carnegie

4.4
You can go after the job you want—and get it!
You can take the job you have—and improve it!
You can take any situation—and make it work for you!

Dale Carnegie’s rock-solid, time-tested advice has carried countless people up the ladder of success in their business and personal lives. One of the most groundbreaking and timeless bestsellers of all time, How to Win Friends & Influence People will teach
25

Made You Up

Francesca Zappia

4.4
Reality, it turns out, is often not what you perceive it to be—sometimes, there really is someone out to get you. Made You Up tells the story of Alex, a high school senior unable to tell the difference between real life and delusion. This is a compelling and provoking literary debut that will appeal to fans of Wes Anderson, Silver Linings Playbook and Liar.

Alex fights a daily battle to figure out
26

My Heart and Other Black Holes

Jasmine Warga, Rebecca Lowman, et al

4.4
Sixteen-year-old physics nerd Aysel is obsessed with plotting her own death. With a mother who can barely look at her without wincing, classmates who whisper behind her back, and a father whose violent crime rocked her small town, Aysel is ready to turn her potential energy into nothingness.

There’s only one problem: she’s not sure she has the courage to do it alone. But once she discovers a websit
Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking book cover27

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

Susan Cain

4.4
The book that started the Quiet Revolution

At least one-third of the people we know are introverts. They are the ones who prefer listening to speaking; who innovate and create but dislike self-promotion; who favor working on their own over working in teams. It is to introverts—Rosa Parks, Chopin, Dr. Seuss, Steve Wozniak—that we owe many of the great contributions to society.

In Quiet, Susan Cain a
Thinking, Fast and Slow book cover28

Thinking, Fast and Slow

Kahneman

4.4
Major New York Times bestseller
Winner of the National Academy of Sciences Best Book Award in 2012
Selected by the New York Times Book Review as one of the best books of 2011
A Globe and Mail Best Books of the Year 2011 Title
One of The Economist's 2011 Books of the Year
One of The Wall Street Journal's Best Nonfiction Books of the Year 2011
2013 Presidential Medal of Freedom Recipient

In the internatio
Challenger Deep book cover29

Challenger Deep

Neal Shusterman and Brendan Shusterma

4.3
Alternate Cover Edition for ASIN B00M70ESPO

Caden Bosch is on a ship that's headed for the deepest point on Earth: Challenger Deep, the southern part of the Marianas Trench.

Caden Bosch is a brilliant high school student whose friends are starting to notice his odd behaviour.

Caden Bosch is designated the ship's artist in residence to document the journey with images.

Caden Bosch pretends to join the
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales book cover30

The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales

Oliver Sacks

4.3
If a man has lost a leg or an eye, he knows he has lost a leg or an eye; but if he has lost a self—himself—he cannot know it, because he is no longer there to know it. Dr. Oliver Sacks recounts the stories of patients struggling to adapt to often bizarre worlds of neurological disorder. Here are people who can no longer recognize everyday objects or those they love; who are stricken with violent t
Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression – and the Unexpected Solutions book cover31

Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression – and the Unexpected Solutions

Johann Hari

4.3
From the New York Times bestselling author of Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs, a startling challenge to our thinking about depression and anxiety.

Award-winning journalist Johann Hari suffered from depression since he was a child and started taking antidepressants when he was a teenager. He was told—like his entire generation—that his problem was caused by a chemical
32

The Silver Linings Playbook

Matthew Quick

4.3
Meet Pat. Pat has a theory: his life is a movie produced by God. And his God-given mission is to become physically fit and emotionally literate, whereupon God will ensure a happy ending for him—the return of his estranged wife, Nikki. (It might not come as a surprise to learn that Pat has spent time in a mental health facility.) The problem is, Pat's now home, and everything feels off. No one will
33

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Mark Haddon

4.3
Christopher John Francis Boone knows all the countries of the world and their capitals and every prime number up to 7,057. He relates well to animals but has no understanding of human emotions. He cannot stand to be touched. And he detests the color yellow.

Although gifted with a superbly logical brain, for fifteen-year-old Christopher everyday interactions and admonishments have little meaning. He
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life book cover34

The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life

Mark Manson

4.3
Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780062457738

In this generation-defining self-help guide, a superstar blogger cuts through the crap to show us how to stop trying to be "positive" all the time so that we can truly become better, happier people.

For decades, we’ve been told that positive thinking is the key to a happy, rich life. "Fk positivity," Mark Manson says. "Let’s be honest, shit is fked and w
35

Looking for Alaska

John Green

4.3
The award-winning, genre-defining debut from #1 bestselling author of The Fault in Our Stars

First drink
First prank
First friend
First girl
Last words

Miles “Pudge” Halter is abandoning his safe-okay, boring-life. Fascinated by the last words of famous people, Pudge leaves for boarding school to seek what a dying Rabelais called the “Great Perhaps.”

Pudge becomes encircled by friends whose lives are eve
36

Hyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem, and Other Things That Happened

Allie Brosh

4.3
This is a book I wrote. Because I wrote it, I had to figure out what to put on the back cover to explain what it is. I tried to write a long, third-person summary that would imply how great the book is and also sound vaguely authoritative--like maybe someone who isn’t me wrote it--but I soon discovered that I’m not sneaky enough to pull it off convincingly. So I decided to just make a list of thin
The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom book cover37

The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom

Don Miguel Ruiz, Janet Mills

4.3
In The Four Agreements, don Miguel Ruiz reveals the source of self-limiting beliefs that rob us of joy and create needless suffering. Based on ancient Toltec wisdom, the Four Agreements offer a powerful code of conduct that can rapidly transform our lives to a new experience of freedom, true happiness, and love. The Four Agreements are: Be Impeccable With Your Word, Don't Take Anything Personally,
38

Under Rose-Tainted Skies

Louise Gornall

4.3
At seventeen, Norah has accepted that the four walls of her house delineate her life. She knows that fearing everything from inland tsunamis to odd numbers is irrational, but her mind insists the world outside is too big, too dangerous. So she stays safe inside, watching others’ lives through her windows and social media feed.

But when Luke arrives on her doorstep, he doesn’t see a girl defined by
Meditations book cover39

Meditations

Marcus Aurelius

4.2
One measure, perhaps, of a book's worth, is its intergenerational pliancy: do new readers acquire it and interpret it afresh down through the ages? The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, translated and introduced by Gregory Hays, by that standard, is very worthwhile, indeed. Hays suggests that its most recent incarnation--as a self-help book--is not only valid, but may be close to the author's intent
Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness book cover40

Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness

William Styron

4.2
A work of great personal courage and a literary tour de force, this bestseller is Styron's true account of his descent into a crippling and almost suicidal depression. Styron is perhaps the first writer to convey the full terror of depression's psychic landscape, as well as the illuminating path to recovery.
Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams book cover41

Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams

Matthew Walker

4.2
“Why We Sleep is an important and fascinating book…Walker taught me a lot about this basic activity that every person on Earth needs. I suspect his book will do the same for you.” —Bill Gates

A New York Times bestseller and international sensation, this “stimulating and important book” (Financial Times) is a fascinating dive into the purpose and power of slumber.

With two appearances on CBS This Mor
42

Finding Audrey

Sophie Kinsella

4.2
Audrey can't leave the house. she can't even take off her dark glasses inside the house.

Then her brother's friend Linus stumbles into her life. With his friendly, orange-slice smile and his funny notes, he starts to entice Audrey out again - well, Starbucks is a start. And with Linus at her side, Audrey feels like she can do the things she'd thought were too scary. Suddenly, finding her way back t
43

Prozac Nation: Young and Depressed in America

Elizabeth Wurtzel

4.2
Elizabeth Wurtzel's New York Times best-selling memoir, with a new afterword

"Sparkling, luminescent prose . . . A powerful portrait of one girl's journey through the purgatory of depression and back." —New York Times

"A book that became a cultural touchstone." —New Yorker


Elizabeth Wurtzel writes with her finger on the faint pulse of an overdiagnosed generation whose ruling icons are Kurt Cobain,
44

Am I Normal Yet? (The Spinster Club, #1)

Holly Bourne

4.2
All Evie wants is to be normal. She’s almost off her meds and at a new college where no one knows her as the girl-who-went-crazy. She’s even going to parties and making friends. There’s only one thing left to tick off her list…

But relationships are messy – especially relationships with teenage guys. They can make any girl feel like they’re going mad. And if Evie can’t even tell her new friends Amb
The Gifts of Imperfection book cover45

The Gifts of Imperfection

Brené Brown

4.2
New York Times best-selling author and professor Brené Brown offers a powerful and inspiring book that explores how to cultivate the courage, compassion, and connection to embrace your imperfections and to recognize that you are enough.

Each day we face a barrage of images and messages from society and the media telling us who, what, and how we should be. We are led to believe that if we could only
Milk and Honey book cover46

Milk and Honey

Rupi Kaur

4.2
Milk and Honey is a collection of poetry and prose about survival. About the experience of violence, abuse, love, loss, and femininity.

The book is divided into four chapters, and each chapter serves a different purpose. Deals with a different pain. Heals a different heartache. Milk and Honey takes readers through a journey of the most bitter moments in life and finds sweetness in them because ther
The Courage to Be Disliked: The Japanese Phenomenon That Shows You How to Change Your Life and Achieve Real Happiness book cover47

The Courage to Be Disliked: The Japanese Phenomenon That Shows You How to Change Your Life and Achieve Real Happiness

Ichiro Kishimi, Fumitake Koga

4.2
The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up for the mind, The Courage to Be Disliked is the Japanese phenomenon that shows you how to free yourself from the shackles of past experiences and others’ expectations to achieve real happiness.

The Courage to Be Disliked, already an enormous bestseller in Asia with more than 3.5 million copies sold, demonstrates how to unlock the power within yourself to be the
48

Highly Illogical Behavior

John Corey Whaley

4.2
Sixteen-year-old Solomon is agoraphobic. He hasn’t left the house in three years, which is fine by him.

Ambitious Lisa desperately wants to get into the second-best psychology program for college (she’s being realistic). But is ambition alone enough to get her in?

Enter Lisa.

Determined to “fix” Sol, Lisa steps into his world, along with her charming boyfriend, Clark, and soon the three form an unexp
The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness book cover49

The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness

Elyn Saks

4.2
Elyn Saks is a success by any measure: she's an endowed professor at the prestigious University of Southern California Gould School of Law. She has managed to achieve this in spite of being diagnosed as schizophrenic and given a "grave" prognosis—and suffering the effects of her illness throughout her life.

Saks was only eight, and living an otherwise idyllic childhood in sunny 1960s Miami, when he
50

A List of Cages

Robin Roe

4.2
When Adam Blake lands the best elective ever in his senior year, serving as an aide to the school psychologist, he thinks he’s got it made. Sure, it means a lot of sitting around, which isn’t easy for a guy with ADHD, but he can’t complain, since he gets to spend the period texting all his friends. Then the doctor asks him to track down the troubled freshman who keeps dodging her, and Adam discove
Think and Grow Rich book cover51

Think and Grow Rich

Napoleon Hill

4.2
One of the most popular personal development and self-improvement books of all time, Think and Grow Rich has sold over 100 million copies worldwide since its first publication during the Great Depression. In this hardcover edition, Napoleon Hill presents a "Philosophy of Achievement" in 13 principles drawn from the success stories of such greats as Andrew Carnegie, Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, and o
52

History Is All You Left Me

Adam Silvera, Tom Picasso, et al

4.2
When Griffin's first love and ex-boyfriend, Theo, dies in a drowning accident, his universe implodes. Even though Theo had moved to California for college and started seeing Jackson, Griffin never doubted Theo would come back to him when the time was right. But now, the future he's been imagining for himself has gone far off course.

To make things worse, the only person who truly understands his h
The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression book cover53

The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression

Andrew Solomon

4.2
Sometimes, the legacy of depression includes a wisdom beyond one's years, a depth of passion unexperienced by those who haven't traveled to hell and back. Off the charts in its enlightening, comprehensive analysis of this pervasive yet misunderstood condition, The Noonday Demon forges a long, brambly path through the subject of depression--exposing all the discordant views and "answers" offered by
The Catcher in the Rye book cover54

The Catcher in the Rye

J. D. Salinger

4.1
The hero-narrator of The Catcher in the Rye is an ancient child of sixteen, a native New Yorker named Holden Caulfield. Through circumstances that tend to preclude adult, secondhand description, he leaves his prep school in Pennsylvania and goes underground in New York City for three days. The boy himself is at once too simple and too complex for us to make any final comment about him or his story
The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment book cover55

The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

Eckhart Tolle

4.1
Eckhart Tolle is emerging as one of today's most inspiring teachers. In The
Power of Now, a #1 national bestseller, the author describes his transition
from despair to self-realization soon after his 29th birthday. Tolle took
another ten years to understand this transformation, during which time he
evolved a philosophy that has parallels in Buddhism, relaxation techniques,
and meditation theory but is
Sharp Objects book cover56

Sharp Objects

Gillian Flynn

4.1
Fresh from a brief stay at a psych hospital, reporter Camille Preaker faces a troubling assignment: she must return to her tiny hometown to cover the murders of two preteen girls. For years, Camille has hardly spoken to her neurotic, hypochondriac mother or to the half-sister she barely knows: a beautiful thirteen-year-old with an eerie grip on the town. Now, installed in her old bedroom in her fa
57

Notes on a Nervous Planet

Matt Haig

4.1
A follow-up to Matt Haig's internationally bestselling memoir, Reasons to Stay Alive, a broader look at how modern life feeds our anxiety, and how to live a better life.

The societies we live in are increasingly making our minds ill, making it feel as though the way we live is engineered to make us unhappy. When Matt Haig developed panic disorder, anxiety, and depression as an adult, it took him a
Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead book cover58

Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead

Brené Brown

4.1
Researcher and thought leader Dr. Brené Brown offers a powerful new vision that encourages us to dare greatly: to embrace vulnerability and imperfection, to live wholeheartedly, and to courageously engage in our lives.

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is
59

Paperweight

Meg Haston

4.1
Seventeen-year-old Stevie is trapped. In her life. In her body. And now in an eating-disorder treatment center on the dusty outskirts of the New Mexico desert.

Life in the center is regimented and intrusive, a nightmare come true. Nurses and therapists watch Stevie at meal time, accompany her to the bathroom, and challenge her to eat the foods she’s worked so hard to avoid.

Her dad has signed her up
How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence book cover60

How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence

Michael Pollan

4.1
Could psychedelic drugs change our worldview? One of America's most admired writers takes us on a mind-altering journey to the frontiers of human consciousness

When LSD was first discovered in the 1940s, it seemed to researchers, scientists and doctors as if the world might be on the cusp of psychological revolution. It promised to shed light on the deep mysteries of consciousness, as well as offer
How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain book cover61

How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain

Lisa Barrett

4.1
“Fascinating . . . A thought-provoking journey into emotion science.” — Wall Street Journal

“A singular book, remarkable for the freshness of its ideas and the boldness and clarity with which they are presented.” — Scientific American

“A brilliant and original book on the science of emotion, by the deepest thinker about this topic since Darwin.” — Daniel Gilbert, best-selling author of Stumbling o
62

Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock

Matthew Quick

4.1
Today is Leonard Peacock’s birthday. It is also the day he hides a gun in his backpack. Because today is the day he will kill his former best friend, and then himself, with his grandfather’s P-38 pistol.

But first he must say good-bye to the four people who matter most to him: his Humphrey Bogart-obsessed next-door neighbor, Walt; his classmate, Baback, a violin virtuoso; Lauren, the Christian home
Marbles: Mania, Depression, Michelangelo, and Me book cover63

Marbles: Mania, Depression, Michelangelo, and Me

Ellen Forney

4.1
Cartoonist Ellen Forney explores the relationship between “crazy” and “creative” in this graphic memoir of her bipolar disorder, woven with stories of famous bipolar artists and writers.

Shortly before her thirtieth birthday, Forney was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Flagrantly manic and terrified that medications would cause her to lose creativity, she began a years-long struggle to find mental
The Collected Schizophrenias: Essays book cover64

The Collected Schizophrenias: Essays

Esmé Weijun Wang

4.1
An intimate, moving book written with the immediacy and directness of one who still struggles with the effects of mental and chronic illness, The Collected Schizophrenias cuts right to the core. Schizophrenia is not a single unifying diagnosis, and Esmé Weijun Wang writes not just to her fellow members of the "collected schizophrenias" but to those who wish to understand it as well. Opening with t
The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry book cover65

The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry

Jon Ronson

4.1
In this madcap journey, a bestselling journalist investigates psychopaths and the industry of doctors, scientists, and everyone else who studies them.

The Psychopath Test is a fascinating journey through the minds of madness. Jon Ronson's exploration of a potential hoax being played on the world's top neurologists takes him, unexpectedly, into the heart of the madness industry. An influential psyc
10% Happier: How I Tamed the Voice in My Head, Reduced Stress Without Losing My Edge, and Found Self-Help That Actually Works book cover66

10% Happier: How I Tamed the Voice in My Head, Reduced Stress Without Losing My Edge, and Found Self-Help That Actually Works

Dan Harris

4.1
Nightline anchor Dan Harris embarks on an unexpected, hilarious, and deeply skeptical odyssey through the strange worlds of spirituality and self-help, and discovers a way to get happier that is truly achievable.

After having a nationally televised panic attack on Good Morning America, Dan Harris knew he had to make some changes. A lifelong nonbeliever, he found himself on a bizarre adventure, invo
12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos book cover67

12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos

Jordan B. Peterson

4.1
What does everyone in the modern world need to know? Renowned psychologist Jordan B. Peterson's answer to this most difficult of questions uniquely combines the hard-won truths of ancient tradition with the stunning revelations of cutting-edge scientific research.

Humorous, surprising, and informative, Dr. Peterson tells us why skateboarding boys and girls must be left alone, what terrible fate awa
68

Impulse (Impulse, #1)

Ellen Hopkins

4.1
Sometimes you don't wake up. But if you happen to, you know things will never be the same.

Three lives, three different paths to the same destination: Aspen Springs, a psychiatric hospital for those who have attempted the ultimate act—suicide.

Vanessa is beautiful and smart, but her secrets keep her answering the call of the blade.

Tony, after suffering a painful childhood, can only find peace throug
Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents book cover69

Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents

Lindsay C Gibson

4.1
If you grew up with an emotionally immature, unavailable, or selfish parent, you may have lingering feelings of anger, loneliness, betrayal, or abandonment. You may recall your childhood as a time when your emotional needs were not met, when your feelings were dismissed, or when you took on adult levels of responsibility in an effort to compensate for your parent’s behavior. These wounds can be he
The Glass Castle book cover70

The Glass Castle

Jeannette Walls

4.1
A tender, moving tale of unconditional love in a family that, despite its profound flaws, gave the author the fiery determination to carve out a successful life on her own terms.

Jeannette Walls grew up with parents whose ideals and stubborn nonconformity were both their curse and their salvation. Rex and Rose Mary Walls had four children. In the beginning, they lived like nomads, moving among Sout
A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose book cover71

A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose

Eckhart Tolle

4.1

Building on the astonishing success of The Power of Now, Eckhart Tolle presents readers with an honest look at the current state of humanity: He implores us to see and accept that this state, which is based on an erroneous identification with the egoic mind, is one of dangerous insanity.

Tolle tells us there is good news, however. There is an alternative to this potentially dire situation. Humani
72

The Astonishing Color of After

Emily X.R. Pan

4.1
Leigh Chen Sanders is absolutely certain about one thing: When her mother died by suicide, she turned into a bird.

Leigh, who is half Asian and half white, travels to Taiwan to meet her maternal grandparents for the first time. There, she is determined to find her mother, the bird. In her search, she winds up chasing after ghosts, uncovering family secrets, and forging a new relationship with her g
The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure book cover73

The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure

Greg Lukianoff, Jonathan Haidt

4.1
A timely investigation into the campus assault on free speech and what it means for students, education, and our democracy.

The generation now coming of age has been taught three Great Untruths: their feelings are always right; they should avoid pain and discomfort; and they should look for faults in others and not themselves. These three Great Untruths are part of a larger philosophy that sees you
We Were Liars book cover74

We Were Liars

E. Lockhart

4.1
A beautiful and distinguished family.
A private island.
A brilliant, damaged girl; a passionate, political boy.
A group of four friends—the Liars—whose friendship turns destructive.
A revolution. An accident. A secret.
Lies upon lies.
True love.
The truth.

We Were Liars is a modern, sophisticated suspense novel from New York Times bestselling author, National Book Award finalist, and Printz Award honoree
Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ book cover75

Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ

Daniel Goleman

4.1
Everyone knows that high IQ is no guarantee of success, happiness, or virtue, but until Emotional Intelligence, we could only guess why. Daniel Goleman's brilliant report from the frontiers of psychology and neuroscience offers startling new insight into our "two minds"—the rational and the emotional—and how they together shape our destiny.

Through vivid examples, Goleman delineates the five crucia
The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You book cover76

The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You

Elaine N. Aron

4.1
Do you have a keen imagination and vivid dreams? Is time alone each day as essential to you as food and water? Are you "too shy" or "too sensitive" according to others? Do noise and confusion quickly overwhelm you? If your answers are yes, you may be a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP).

Most of us feel overstimulated every once in a while, but for the HSP, it's a way of life. In this groundbreaking boo
The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself book cover77

The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself

Michael A. Singer

4.1
Who are you? When you start to explore this question, you find out how elusive it really is. Are you a physical body? A collection of experiences and memories? A partner in a relationship? Each time you consider these aspects of yourself, you realize that there is much more to you than any of these can define.

In The Untethered Soul—now a New York Times bestseller—spiritual teacher Michael Singer
78

Darius the Great Is Not Okay (Darius The Great, #1)

Adib Khorram

4.1
Darius doesn't think he'll ever be enough, in America or in Iran.

Darius Kellner speaks better Klingon than Farsi, and he knows more about Hobbit social cues than Persian ones. He's about to take his first-ever trip to Iran, and it's pretty overwhelming--especially when he's also dealing with clinical depression, a disapproving dad, and a chronically anemic social life. In Iran, he gets to know his
79

We Are Okay

Nina LaCour

4.1
You go through life thinking there’s so much you need…

Until you leave with only your phone, your wallet, and a picture of your mother.


Marin hasn’t spoken to anyone from her old life since the day she left everything behind. No one knows the truth about those final weeks. Not even her best friend, Mabel. But even thousands of miles away from the California coast, at college in New York, Marin still
The Yellow Wall-Paper book cover80

The Yellow Wall-Paper

Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Elaine Hedges

4.1
‘It is stripped off - the paper - in great patches . . . The colour is repellent . . . In the places where it isn’t faded and where the sun is just so - I can see a strange, provoking, formless sort of figure, that seems to skulk about . . .’

Based on the author’s own experiences, 'The Yellow Wallpaper' is the chilling tale of a woman driven to the brink of insanity by the ‘rest cure’ prescribed af
81

Still Alice

Lisa Genova

4.1
Still Alice is a compelling debut novel about a 50-year-old woman's sudden descent into early onset Alzheimer's disease, written by first-time author Lisa Genova, who holds a Ph. D in neuroscience from Harvard University.

Alice Howland, happily married with three grown children and a house on the Cape, is a celebrated Harvard professor at the height of her career when she notices a forgetfulness c
The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter - and How to Make the Most of Them Now book cover82

The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter - and How to Make the Most of Them Now

Meg Jay

4.0
Our "thirty-is-the-new-twenty" culture tells us the twentysomething years don't matter. Some say they are a second adolescence. Others call them an emerging adulthood. Dr. Meg Jay, a clinical psychologist, argues that twentysomethings have been caught in a swirl of hype and misinformation, much of which has trivialized what is actually the most defining decade of adulthood.

Drawing from a decade o
83

We Are the Ants

Shaun David Hutchinson

4.0
From the author of The Five Stages of Andrew Brawley comes a brand-new novel about a teenage boy who must decide whether or not the world is worth saving.

Henry Denton has spent years being periodically abducted by aliens. Then the aliens give him an ultimatum: The world will end in 144 days, and all Henry has to do to stop it is push a big red button.

Only he isn’t sure he wants to.

After all, life
A Little Life book cover84

A Little Life

Hanya Yanagihara

4.0
When four classmates from a small Massachusetts college move to New York to make their way, they're broke, adrift, and buoyed only by their friendship and ambition. There is kind, handsome Willem, an aspiring actor; JB, a quick-witted, sometimes cruel Brooklyn-born painter seeking entry to the art world; Malcolm, a frustrated architect at a prominent firm; and withdrawn, brilliant, enigmatic Jude,
85

The Shock of the Fall

Nathan Filer

4.0
What begins as the story of a lost boy turns into a story of a brave man yearning to understand what happened that night, in the years since, and to his very person.

While on vacation with their parents, Matthew Homes and his older brother snuck out in the middle of the night. Only Matthew came home safely. Ten years later, Matthew tells us, he has found a way to bring his brother back...

What begi
Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving: A Guide and Map for Recovering from Childhood Trauma book cover86

Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving: A Guide and Map for Recovering from Childhood Trauma

Pete Walker

4.0
I have Complex PTSD [Cptsd] and wrote this book from the perspective of someone who has experienced a great reduction of symptoms over the years. I also wrote it from the viewpoint of someone who has discovered many silver linings in the long, windy, bumpy road of recovering from Cptsd. I felt encouraged to write this book because of thousands of e-mail responses to the articles on my website that
A People's History of the United States book cover87

A People's History of the United States

Howard Zinn

4.0
"A wonderful, splendid book--a book that should be ready by every American, student or otherwise, who wants to understand his country, its true history, and its hope for the future." --Howard Fast

With a new introduction by Anthony Arnove, this edition of the classic national bestseller chronicles American history from the bottom up, throwing out the official narrative taught in schools—with its em
The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog: And Other Stories from a Child Psychiatrist's Notebook book cover88

The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog: And Other Stories from a Child Psychiatrist's Notebook

Bruce D Perry and Maia Szalavitz

4.0
A renowned psychiatrist reveals how trauma affects children--and outlines the path to recoveryHow does trauma affect a child's mind--and how can that mind recover? In the classic The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog, Dr. Perry explains what happens to the brains of children exposed to extreme stress and shares their lessons of courage, humanity, and hope. Only when we understand the science of the mind
89

Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself

Melody Beattie

4.0
The healing touchstone of millions, this modern classic by one of America's best-loved and most inspirational authors holds the key to understanding codependency and to unlocking its stultifying hold on your life.

Is someone else's problem your problem? If, like so many others, you've lost sight of your own life in the drama of tending to someone else's, you may be codependent--and you may find you
Make Your Bed: Little Things That Can Change Your Life... And Maybe the World book cover90

Make Your Bed: Little Things That Can Change Your Life... And Maybe the World

William H. McRaven

4.0
If you want to change the world, start off by making your bed.

If you make your bed every morning, you will have accomplished the first task of the day. It will give you a small sense of pride and it will encourage you to do another task and another and another. By the end of the day, that one task completed will have turned into many tasks completed. Making your bed will also reinforce the fact th

91

The Rest of Us Just Live Here

Patrick Ness

4.0
What if you aren’t the Chosen One?

The one who’s supposed to fight the zombies, or the soul-eating ghosts, or whatever the heck this new thing is, with the blue lights and the death?

What if you’re like Mikey? Who just wants to graduate and go to prom and maybe finally work up the courage to ask Henna out before someone goes and blows up the high school. Again.

Because sometimes there are problems bi
Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia book cover92

Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia

Marya Hornbacher

4.0
Why would a talented young woman enter into a torrid affair with hunger, drugs, sex, and death? Through five lengthy hospital stays, endless therapy, and the loss of family, friends, jobs, and all sense of what it means to be "normal," Marya Hornbacher lovingly embraced her anorexia and bulimia—until a particularly horrifying bout with the disease in college put the romance of wasting away to rest
93

Zen as F*ck: A Journal for Practicing the Mindful Art of Not Giving a Sh*t

Monica Sweeney

4.0
A beautiful, uplifting guided journal for when you just don't give a f*ck...

The road to serenity is ahead, and it’s paved with a f*ck-ton of profanity. When quiet meditation and peaceful mantras aren’t enough to cut through the bullsh*t and brighten your day—hold close the pages of Zen as F*ck. On each and every page, you can give the good around you a warm f*cking hug and kick the bad on its ass.
It Didn't Start with You: How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are and How to End the Cycle book cover94

It Didn't Start with You: How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are and How to End the Cycle

Mark Wolynn

4.0
A groundbreaking approach to transforming traumatic legacies passed down in families over generations, by an acclaimed expert in the field

Depression. Anxiety. Chronic Pain. Phobias. Obsessive thoughts. The evidence is compelling: the roots of these difficulties may not reside in our immediate life experience or in chemical imbalances in our brains--but in the lives of our parents, grandparents, an
95

Little & Lion

Brandy Colbert

4.0
When Suzette comes home to Los Angeles from her boarding school in New England, she isn't sure if she'll ever want to go back. L.A. is where her friends and family are (along with her crush, Emil). And her stepbrother, Lionel, who has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, needs her emotional support.

But as she settles into her old life, Suzette finds herself falling for someone new...the same girl
The Power of Positive Thinking book cover96

The Power of Positive Thinking

Norman Vincent Peale

4.0
"This book is written with the sole objective of helping the reader achieve a happy, satisfying, and worthwhile life."

-- Norman Vincent Peale

The precursor to The Secret, The Power of Positive Thinking has helped millions of men and women to achieve fulfillment in their lives. In this phenomenal bestseller, Dr. Peale demonstrates the power of faith in action. With the practical techniques outlined

Untamed book cover97
In her most revealing and powerful book yet, the beloved activist, speaker, and author of the bestselling sensations Love Warrior and Carry On, Warrior explores the joy and peace we discover when we stop striving to meet the expectations of the world, and start trusting the voice deep within us.

“Untamed will liberate women—emotionally, spiritually, and physically. I believe Glennon was born to wr
Breaking The Habit of Being Yourself: How to Lose Your Mind and Create a New One book cover98

Breaking The Habit of Being Yourself: How to Lose Your Mind and Create a New One

Joe Dispenza

4.0
You are not doomed by your genes and hardwired to be a certain way for the rest of your life. A new science is emerging that empowers all human beings to create the reality they choose. In Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself, renowned author, speaker, researcher, and chiropractor Dr. Joe Dispenza combines the fields of quantum physics, neuroscience, brain chemistry, biology, and genetics to sho
99

Depression & Other Magic Tricks

Sabrina Benaim

4.0
Depression & Other Magic Tricks is the debut book by Sabrina Benaim, one of the most-viewed performance poets of all time, whose poem "Explaining My Depression to My Mother" has become a cultural phenomenon with over 5,000,000 views.

Depression & Other Magic Tricks explores themes of mental health, love, and family. It is a documentation of struggle and triumph, a celebration of daily life and of
Rising Strong book cover100

Rising Strong

Brené Brown

4.0
The physics of vulnerability is simple: If we are brave enough often enough, we will fall. The author of Daring Greatly and The Gifts of Imperfection tells us what it takes to get back up, and how owning our stories of disappointment, failure, and heartbreak gives us the power to write a daring new ending. Struggle, Brené Brown writes, can be our greatest call to courage, and rising strong our cle