Something in the Woods Loves You

Written by: Jarod K. Anderson

First line: In Ohio, winter is landscape poetry.

Why you should read this book: Magical and heart wrenching, these essays braid the poet's childhood memories of Ohio's plants and animals with his intentional present day reconnection with nature, and its evolution as a tool in his arsenal against depression. This book touched me on a deep level, probably because it resonated with so many of my personal experiences, both beautiful and terrible, but the prose is  also a luscious dive into the wilderness, an immersive experience of midwestern flora and fauna through the lenses of nostalgia, depression, and recovery. This book is for anyone who has ever loved the woods. 

Why you should read this book: You hate the woods. 

Feeding Ghosts: A Graphic Memoir

Written by: Tessa Hulls

First line: If you had told me five years ago that my mother and I would find ourselves here, traveling back into the past in the hopes of building a bridge between us, the sheer impossibility would have caught in my throat like a bone. 

Why you should read this book: I notice that I read a lot of memoirs written by adult women about their complex relationships with their problematic mothers, but this one seems overwhelming in comparison, almost impossibly complex, and deep, and heart-wrenching. To understand her relationship with her mother, Tessa Hulls must understand who her mother is, and to understand that, she must understand her mother's trauma, and to do that, she must understand her grandmother, who she knew only as a small and crazy Chinese lady who lived in her house in California, physically, but mentally existed in some evanescent slice of world history involving the Communist Revolution. Now grown, her grandmother passed, Hulls takes her mother back to Hong Kong and China in an attempt to recreate the lives of her ancestors while recalling her own childhood and how her American upbringing made her a stranger to the past. 

Why you shouldn't read this book: It's heavy; no wonder it took the author a decade to write. 

The Sociopath Next Door

Written by: Martha Stout, PhD

First line: Imagine--if you can--not having a conscience, none at all, no feelings of guilt or remorse no matter what you do, no limiting sense of concern for the well-being of strangers, friends, or even family members.

Why you should read this book: In accessible language written for a lay audience, the author demystifies the concept known to many as sociopathy, a popular term for the constellation of mental disorders that spring up around the roughly four percent of the population who, for whatever reason, lack a conscience. She demonstrates that such individuals, while often sensationalized in the media as bloodthirsty killers, are typically small, mundane people living small, mundane lives, and also making everyone around them miserable for their own satisfaction. This book endeavors to explain the internal processes of the sociopath, and help other recognize these tendencies in those around them. 

Why you shouldn't read this book: It was published twenty years ago, but you will almost certainly recognize some terrifying aspects of modern America in its pages.

Our House Is on Fire: Scenes of a Family and a Planet in Crisis

Written by: Greta Thunberg, Svante Thunberg, Malena Ernman, and Beata Ernman

First line: This could have been my story.

Why you should read this book: Svante and Malena, loving and successful Swedish musicians, understood what it was like to be a little different, but when their two daughters, Greta and Beata, both began exhibiting difficulty moving through the world, they had to stretch their understanding to find ways to accommodate neurodiverse kids in an unaccommodating world. While Beata suffered debilitating intolerance to noise, Greta became increasingly despondent over climate change and the fact that the people who should be doing something about it were not. Of course, at the age of fifteen, Greta's "student strike" outside Parliament turns her into one of the most well-known climate activists and inspires countless young people to join her cause. 

Why you shouldn't read this book: It's very difficult, emotionally speaking: a lot of the book is about how much Greta and Beata suffer before their parents are able to figure out how to keep their sensitive children healthy, and the rest of it is basically about the very dire situation threatening all life on planet Earth right now. 

I'm Glad My Mom Is Dead

Written by: Jennette McCurdy

First line: It's strange how we always give big news to loved ones in a coma, as if a coma is just a thing that happens from a lack of something to be excited about in your life. 

Why you should read this book: Her entire life, Jennette McCurdy has known that the only important thing in the world is appeasing her mother and doing whatever it takes to keep her happy. When this means becoming an actress and doing everything possible to make it in Hollywood, she becomes an actress and does everything possible to make it in Hollywood; when this means developing an eating disorder, she develops an eating disorder. Although she becomes rich and famous, not until her mother's death does McCurdy start to understand how incredibly mentally ill and abusive her mother was and how much work she has to do to reclaim her life from her tortured upbringing. 

Why you shouldn't read this book: If your mom is a controlling hoarder but she's still alive and you haven't gotten rich or famous and you can't figure out how to escape her abuse, or even if you have, this book might be kind of triggering.

Neurodiversity

Written by: Thomas Armstrong, PhD

First line: Imagine for a moment that our society has been transformed into a culture of flowers.

Why you should read this book: Differences of the mind are often seen as disabilities to be overcome, but Armstrong argues that these differences--neurodiversities--while often challenging, each come with their own strengths and gifts, and asks readers to consider reframing their views of those who are different and, rather than focus on what neurodiverse people can't do, begin focusing on what they can. Armstrong holds a wide view of neurodiversity, including not only ADD/ADHD and autism, but also dyslexia, mood disorders, anxiety, cognitive disabilities, and schizophrenia, and lays out clear and research-based perspectives on the positive aspects of these conditions along with speculation about their role in overall human success, without romanticizing or downplaying ways in which they may make it difficult to function under certain societal structures. Rather than forcing individuals to a standard of conformity they cannot hope to achieve, he argues for inclusivity that recognizes the how neurodiverse people best function, and how society can accommodate their differences without pushing them out of the center, and how they can create lives for themselves that make the best use of their talents while minimizing any disabling aspect of the way they think.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You've never met a square peg you couldn't shove into a round hole.

To Be Honest

Written by: Michael Leviton

First line My parents prepared me far in advance for life's inevitable tragedies (death, rejection, failure, etc.).

Why you should read this book: Raised by parents who taught a strict code of radical honesty, which included everyone sharing every thought that moved through their minds at all times, with the assumption that nobody could possibly be offended by this behavior because they are just being honest and sharing their thoughts, the author grows up never fully understanding what everyone else's problem is, and also not caring. It's both hilarious and heartbreaking, and as he carries this philosophy into adolescence and adulthood, it impacts every facet of his life until he realized, one day, that lying might be a habit that could actually improve his life, at least the part that involves interacting with other humans. After astonishing Ira Glass with his life story and worldview, he decides to be brutally honest in sharing his recollections in print. 

Why you shouldn't read this book: Honestly, I loved everything about it, although I wondered if the author and his father ever considered that some of their policy was borne out of neurodiversity as well as honesty. 

Smaller Sister

Written by: Magie Edkins Willis

First line: Olivia, darling, meet your new baby sister.

Why you should read this book: Lucy has always counted on the friendship of her big sister, Livy, but lately Livy has been changing and pushing her away and behaving in other ways that Lucy can't understand until she finds out that her sister has been diagnosed with an eating disorder. Lucy can't understand her sister's anorexia, but she's determined to help her through her recovery. But Livy's body dysmorphia eventually impacts her sister's self-image, and Lucy has to handle her own problems as her body changes.

Why you shouldn't read this book: Possibly triggering for those with eating disorders. 

The Four Agreements

Written by: Don Miguel Ruiz

First line: Thousands of years ago, the Toltec were known throughout southern Mexico as "women and men of knowledge."

Why you should read this book: A lot of people claim that it changed their lives. In repetitive and dreamlike language, it lays out a system of explanation as to why you, the reader, are unhappy, and how to find happiness by adhering to four simple beliefs about how to think and act. Just speak kindly, don't take things personally, don't make assumptions, and always do your best, and you will transform this world from hell to heaven.

Why you shouldn't read this book: The provenance of the "Toltec" is unclear (getting some Carlos Castenda vibes here) and there's a New-Agey quality in the instructions.

Turtles All the Way Down

Written by: John Green

First line: At the first time I realized I might be fictional, my weekdays were spent at a publicly funded institution on the north side of Indianapolis called White River High School, where I was required to eat lunch at a particular time--between 12:37 P.M. and 1:14 P.M.--by forces so much larger than myself that I couldn't even begin to identify them. 

Why you should read this book: Teenager Aza "Holmesy" Holmes has been living with anxiety and invasive thought for a while now, probably since her father died when she was a little kid, and although they control many aspects of her life, they don't control her best friend, Daisy. When Daisy learns that Aza used to be friends with the son of a missing billionaire (they met at "sad camp" for kids with dead parents), Daisy wants to exploit that connection in the hopes that she and Aza can collect the reward for finding the missing man. But Aza's reunion with her old friend only exacerbates her illness until her behavior threatens all her relationships and even her life. 

Why you shouldn't read this book: John Green is not exactly known for happy endings. 

Everything Is OK

Written by: Debbi Tung

First line: I feel so lost and overwhelmed.

Why you should read this book: In this candid and understated graphic memoir, the author describes a difficult period of her life, some relevant backstory, her journey through her mental health problems, and the world she encounters on the other side. The first half of the book is primarily a painfully accurate description of living with an undiagnosed anxiety disorder while also coping with known depression and also trying to balance a relationship and a career. The second half is more or less a catalog of the kinds of things you learn in therapy, presented in such a way that you actually might believe that everything is, in fact, OK, or that it might be, if you just keep pushing through. 

Why you shouldn't read this book: I can see how the first half might be kind of upsetting to someone who was not handling their own anxiety and depression very well. 

The Whole Story of Half a Girl

Written by: Veera Hianandani

First line: I'm in school, sitting with my hair hanging long down the back of my chair, my arm around my best friend, Sam.

Why you should read this book: Sonia's father is Indian and her mother is Jewish, but until her dad lost his job and she had to transfer from her fun, hippie school to a public school, she never even thought about her ethnic identity, let alone questions of class and who to sit with at lunch. Now she's torn between the popular cheerleaders who don't understand her, and the kids who might understand her but aren't cool, while mourning the loss of her old relationships. And all this becomes meaningless when her father's mental health becomes the focus of her entire life. 

Why you shouldn't read this book: For a middle grade novel, it tackles numerous difficult issues. 

The One and Only Ruby

Written by: Katherine Applegate

First line: Nobody ever listens to the littlest elephant. 

Why you should read this book: The third in what appears to be a trilogy, this book tells the story of little Ruby's Tusk Day (a special elephant holiday for a young elephant coming of age) and her anxiety in the days leading up to it. Although Ruby lives a safe and comfortable life in the park with a herd of loving elephant matriarchs, her gorilla uncle, Ivan, and her dog uncle, Bob, she still suffers from the unresolved trauma of the things she saw in Africa in her earliest memories. Although she trusts all her family, it's difficult for her to put into words her complicated feelings about her tusks, and the plight of elephants, and the sorrow of her past, but until she can share her truth, she's always going to be scared. 

Why you shouldn't read this book: It's not as good as the first one, although it's better than the second one. 

The Goody

Written by: Lauren Child

First Line: Chirton Krauss was a good child, the very goodest.

Why you should read this book: For a kid's book, this story gets pretty deep, depicting the ways that adults lazily typecast their own children, locking them into roles that cut the child down and prevent them from growing as individuals. Chirton is the "goody" who always does what he's supposed to do, regardless of how he feels about it, and his sister Myrtle does whatever she feels like doing, regardless of what she's supposed to do, and accepts that she's the bad child. When Chirton finally gets fed up with the inequality of the situation, both kids get to experience life from the other point of view and they, and their parents, come to accept that nobody fits neatly into a behavioral box, and nobody should have to, and that it's best for children to be seen as children and not be reduced to binaries. 

Why you shouldn't read this book: If you were always the good kid who always suffered while your siblings slacked off and you never addressed this with your family of origin, this book might be a bit heartbreaking/

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

Written by: Bessel Van der Kolk, M.D.

First line: One does not have to be a combat soldier, or visit a refugee camp in Syria or the Congo to encounter trauma.

Why you should read this book: Written for a lay audience, this is the summation of thirty years of research, experimentation, theory, and work on the subject of trauma: what it is, what it does, and what we, as vulnerable humans can do to counteract its pernicious effects. Van der Kolk describes his introduction to working with traumatized Viet Nam veterans and how his experience led him to dig more deeply into the neurology of trauma and its potential treatments, as well as the important discussion of childhood trauma, and how it impacts untreated adults. Almost half of the book, however, details the various types of treatment that the author and his colleagues have found most effective, with impressive data demonstrating how appropriate treatment can turn around the life of an individual who has always suffered from the pain of the past, returning to them the possibility of a fulfilling life. 

Why you shouldn't read this book: You yourself have never experienced anything unpleasant in life, and neither has anyone you've ever met.

Trees Volume 1

Written by: Warren Ellis and Jason Howard

First line: We can see them from up high.

Why you should read this book: It's been ten years since the strange, silent alien entities known as "trees" rooted themselves around the globe, never acknowledging the human populace of Earth, but impacting every aspect of life for those who live in their shadows. This volume focuses on a number of characters: a young Chinese art student, far from home and falling in love with a trans woman he just met; a group of researchers stationed at a remote outpost in frigid northern Norway; politicians in Somalia and New York; a professor and the girlfriend of a gangster-fascist in Italy. For ten years, the trees have stood silently, but now, something is changing, and the trees, it seems are about to speak.

Why you shouldn't read this book: Well, I wish I had acquired the subsequent seven volumes before I started.

Being a Dog: A Tail of Mindfulness

Written by: Maria Gianferrari and Pete Oswald

First line: Can you be like a dog?

Why you should read this book: Living mindfully, completely engaged in the moment, can be difficult for human beings, but it comes easily and naturally to our favorite companion animals. This book advises readers about how to "be like a dog": to remain present in the body, to breathe and eat and play, to feel ones feelings and release them, to interact with the world with an open heart and an open mind. There's even a section that prompts children to use all five senses as a dog would, along with extra facts about dogs, and a final page to return the reader to the human experience with instructions for mindful breathing.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You're a cat.

Negroland: A Memoir

Written by: Margo Jefferson

First line: I was taught to avoid showing off.

Why you should read this book: In a prose memoir that reads like poetry, Jefferson recounts her own story, steeped in the influence of race, class, and gender, set in the context of her family and community and everything that came before her. Born in Chicago among the Black elite, she is taught from her earliest memories that she must be impeccable in word, deed, and appearance, to uphold the image projected by the privileged, perfected society that molded her: a group intentionally set apart from, and quietly superior to, other Black people along with all of white America. As she grows up through the civil rights movement and finds her own path and her own personality, the weight of inequality and expectations causes her to question and examine the principles of her own upbringing, her own individual identity, and her right to perfect imperfection.

Why you shouldn't read this book: Your parents didn't raise you at all.

Buy Negroland: A Memoir here!

Gris Grimly's Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus

Written by: Mary Shelley and Gris Grimly

First line: You will rejoice to hear that no disaster has accompanied the commencement of an enterprise which you have regarded with such evil forebodings.

Why you should read this book: Unquestionably one of the finest (if not the best) graphic novel adaptations of a classic work of literature I've ever had the pleasure of devouring, and not only because Grimly does an excellent job of preserving the original text while judiciously cutting bits that don't serve his work and won't be missed. With Victor and Elizabeth drawn as OG gothic punks (although this does highlight the fact that Victor is also, at heart, the OG emo kid), the monster looming more physically monstrous than in any other iteration (making his depiction somehow even more sympathetically pathetic), and the whole thing being set in a world that appears simultaneously pastoral and post-apocalyptic, naturalistic and steampunk-infused, this book seems to cut to the heart meat of the tale while also reviving its antique heartbeat for a modern audience. As always, this is a story about the price of being an irresponsible white guy with more money than common sense who isn't accountable to anyone and kind of gets away with murder until he horrifyingly doesn't.

Why you shouldn't read this book: I have to admit that I grabbed it off the shelf without really looking at what I was getting, because I just saw the G G of the author's name and my brain assumed it was a book from a completely different author whose title also contains the initials G G and which also has a powerful steampunk aesthetic (God bless the Foglios, my absolutely favorite webcomic creators of all time, but they simply haven't got the control/love of darkness needed for this undertaking).

Get Gris Grimly's Frankenstein now

Being a Human: Adventure in Forty Thousand Years of Consciousness

Written by: Charles Foster

First line: I first ate a live mammal on a Scottish hill. 

Why you should read this book: A legal scholar and veterinary surgeon who teaches at Oxford and has a home and a family and all sorts of modern-day comforts intentionally shucks them all off in pursuit of an upper paleolithic consciousness, which he attempts to achieve by living in such a way as to summon the mindset of the earliest "behaviorally modern" humans. While many readers will find his methods insane, and his conclusions questionable (Foster uses the modern nonfiction literary technique of imagining in great detail things that he can't possibly know at all and then presenting his daydreams as fact, and sometimes of telling you later on that he made up part of the story because it would have been interesting if it had happened that way), this book does have the power to draw you in to its provocative thesis about our species' place in the order of the universe and our orientation to the natural world and all the things that are wrong with the civilization we've created in the last fifteen thousand years. It's not at all the book I thought it was going to be, but it's a pretty gripping book about a guy who feels out of sync with the world trying to synchronize himself with the planet and waking up certain parts of his mind while inadvertently removing himself even further from the world he started from.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You would consider a man voluntarily starving himself into hallucinations for eight days while lying outside in the snow and watching his young adolescent son eat road kill even though his friend's house is just a short walk away some form of child abuse.

Buy Being a Human from Amazon