Jaymi @TheOCBookGirl

Week 3 – Nonfiction November #theOCBookGirl #nonficnov #nonfictionbookparty

Nonfiction November Week 3

Hello Friends! It’s time for the next blog prompt hosted by The Thousand Book Project.  Make sure to visit their page and link up your post too!  Let’s get into it!

WEEK 3

Three ways to join in this week! You can either share 3 or more books on a single topic that you have read and can recommend (be the expert), you can put the call out for good nonfiction on a specific topic that you have been dying to read (ask the expert), or you can create your own list of books on a topic that you’d like to read (become the expert).

I had such a hard time picking a topic to focus in on. I’ve been hearing a lot about Hidden Valley Road by Robert Kolker and it got me thinking about mental illness in families, specifically schizophrenia. My brother was undiagnosed and passed away in 2015 and it’s a subject I’d like to understand more.

Please let me know if you’ve read any of these title or have any recommendations on the subject.

Schizophrenia

  • Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family by Robert Kolker – The heartrending story of a midcentury American family with twelve children, six of them diagnosed with schizophrenia, that became science’s great hope in the quest to understand the disease.
  • Everything Is Fine, A Memoir by Vince Granata – Grief, mental illness, and the bonds of family are movingly explored in this extraordinary memoir as a writer delves into the tragedy of his mother’s violent death at the hands of his brother who struggled with schizophrenia.
  • Insane: America’s Criminal Treatment of Mental Illness by Alisa Roth – An urgent exposé of the mental health crisis in our courts, jails, and prisons from a veteran public radio journalist.
    America has made mental illness a crime. Jails in New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago each house more people with mental illnesses than any hospital.
  • Fix What You Can: Schizophrenia and a Lawmaker’s Fight for Her Son by Mindy Greiling – In his early twenties, Mindy Greiling’s son, Jim, was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder after experiencing delusions that demanded he kill his mother. Fix What You Can is an illuminating and frank account of caring for a person with a mental illness, told by a parent and advocate.
  • No One Cares about Crazy People: My Family and the Heartbreak of Mental Illness in America by Ron Powers – Ron Powers offers a searching, richly researched narrative of the social history of mental illness in America paired with the deeply personal story of his two sons’ battles with schizophrenia.
  • The Fog of Paranoia: A Sister’s Journey through Her Brother’s Schizophrenia by Sarah Rae – Pat and Sarah had long been friends, not just brother and sister. But something began to change in Pat. He was convinced people were watching him, spying on him.
  • The Collected Schizophrenias: Essays by Esmé Weijun Wang – An intimate, moving book written with the immediacy and directness of one who still struggles with the effects of mental and chronic illness. 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.

 

Don’t forget to check out the latest #nonfictionbookparty post over on Instagram.  I’m hosting a daily photo challenge, tons of giveaways, author guest posts, and much more!

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5 comments

  1. Thank you for sharing about mental health! My son works as a psychologist at a prison and says a significant number of inmates suffer from undiagnosed mental illness. In my teaching career, I saw a huge need for mental health services at the elementary level.

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  2. I don’t normally comment on things that mention my book—but if you’re choosing from this list, I would actually recommend mine as one of them, as it’s the only book from the perspective with someone living with the disorder. Regardless: I’m grateful for people like who to seek to learn about severe mental illness, and happy reading regardless of what you choose.

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  3. Thanks for spotlighting this important topic. I read Hidden Valley Road this year and found it fantastic. I’d like to learn more so these suggestions are helpful.

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  4. What an interesting topic – it’s so important to understand more about mental health issues of all kinds and I’m glad it’s something that’s being talked about (and published) more now. I love the range of topics this week has brought up, too, no two the same in my feed at least!

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