readers advisory for all discussion

so for some reasons these are really hard times for me. here are books that have helped when i've been feeling like this, or that i know would help (except i hate re-reading books):

The Fifth Book of Peace
maxine hong kingston is a genius at dealing with trauma and loss. this book is all about these two things, but it also contains a sense of peace and serenity and faith in healing that struck me to the core. i know she has a new book out but i'm afraid to touch it until someone tells me it's going to be as good as this.

Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail
okay i read this when i was feeling peachy-kino, but i have a feeling it would be good right now too, cuz it's written so well. so here's a requirement: the writing has to be excellent. bad writing has the power to plummet me in the darkest depths of misery all by itself.

Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?
clearly, i'm leaning toward memoirs. in this one, JW talks about a horrid childhood, but what comforted me most was, well, the writing, but also the brief description of severe breakdowns, from which she recovered. i felt less alone.

A Shining Affliction: A Story of Harm and Healing in Psychotherapy
another excellently written book in which someone with terrible mental pain finds her way to light.

do you see a pattern? do you have any suggestions? feel free to ask me questions!

clearly, my request hasn't made an impression. really? no one has a memoir he/she likes?

Ever read Authentic Happiness by Seligman? Scientifically backed up information on original ideas in positive psychology. Very well written. :)

Sorry, Jo. I'd love to help, but I don't read memoirs very often. The only one I've read recently is Infidel which I recommend, but I'm not sure it would cheer you up.

The Glass Castle

The Chronology of Water

The Year of Magical Thinking: The Play

Naked

Fun Home

Elizabeth wrote: "The Glass Castle

The Chronology of Water

The Year of Magical Thinking: The Play

Naked

Fun Home"

oops- the book, not the play ::


The Year of Magical Thinking

I don't really have any suggestions (sorry).
But I did post a request here on August 27, and it only started to bear fruit in the last week or so. Sometimes it just takes a while to be noticed by the right people...
Good luck.

Actually I have thought of one. Lady Gregory: A Literary Portrait by Elizabeth Coxhead. It's not listed on Goodreads, but is readily available on the internet. I haven't read this, but I do have Lady Gregory:selected plays, which includes an introduction that summarises the ups and downs of Lady Gregory's life. Based on this introduction, and the fact that Elizabeth Coxhead was a wonderful woman and a gifted writer, I think you might enjoy this memoir.

These books might appeal. I do think they are all beautifully written and portray people as they attempt to deal with/overcome adversity. Regardless of whether you read these particular books I hope you find books that will offer you solace.

Memory Palace by Mira Bartok Affecting memoir of being raised by a gifted but mentally ill mother.

Tiny Beautiful Things by Cheryl Strayed Columns Strayed wrote under nom de plume Sugar. I found some real wisdom in these pages, especially the column The Human Scale.

Almost anything by Anne Lamott. Some of my favorites are Operating Instructions, Traveling Mercies and Help Thanks Wow Her books have the added advantage of often being laugh out loud hilarious.

Rules of Inheritance by Claire Bidwell Gorgeously written story of dealing with the early death of both parents.

Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight by Alexandra Fuller. Memoir of South African family dealing with tragedy.

Townie by Andre Dubus III Memoir by son of famous writer who spent his teen years as a delinquent but found salvation in writing.

thank you so much everyone! everything sounds really appealing.

Peter wrote: "Actually I have thought of one. Lady Gregory: A Literary Portrait by Elizabeth Coxhead. It's not listed on Goodreads, but is readily available on the internet. I haven't read this, but I do have..."

Lady Gregory: A Literary Portrait is here now.

Try Dog Years by Mark Doty. It is very sad but beautifully written (Doty is a wonderful poet and it shows in his prose, too). Or A Field Guide to Getting Lost by Rebecca Solnit. Or, a slightly older suggestion, Borrowed Time: An AIDS Memoir by Paul Monette.

I loved all three of those books and I think they have some commonalities with those you listed above. This last I didn't absolutely love and might not quite fit the pattern as nicely, but it is well-written and you might check it out: Terry Tempest Williams' When Women Were Birds: Fifty-four Variations on Voice.

thank you christy!

someone read my post but since she's not a member of the group sent her recommedation to me in a message. she recommended Code Name Verity. obviously, SHE BROKE ALL THE RULES, bc all the books i list above are memoirs. nonetheless, the book is working beautifully.

i need to say that i am not a reader of YA literature. or at least not consciously. sometimes i read a book and love it and THEN i discover that people classify it as YA, but i am so irrationally prejudiced against YA that basically i avoid it like the plague.

this book is YA and i'm realizing that this is working totally to my advantage, because even though (and this is how the book is being helpful to me) the narrative is pretty damn harrowing (though in a inexplicably, subtly charming way), AT THE SAME TIME i know that, since it's YA, the final outcome won't be jaded and cynical and life-irremediably-sucks-why-not-die-now? and this is helpful to me too, in an essential way.

sooooooooooo, shifting the parameters a little here, but if you know of something similarly painful that hovers around the YA genre and is therefore backlit by faith in the rightness of the world, i'd be grateful.

some of my favorite YA books that i read without knowing they were YA and that would totally cheer me up and help me now, because they did then: The Catcher in the Rye, Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (this last one probably not YA, but, yeah, all books having to do with kids. i pretty much universally adore books with kids in distress, as long as their is that back light, that faith...

what would NOT work: The Bell Jar, because Esther is unredeemingly miserable and you know know know she'll never stop being so. the book, in fact, seems to me like a perfect account of trauma, without healing.

If you're interested in good and affirming YA, I have to recommend John Green, particularly The Fault in Our Stars. This book breaks my heart and makes me weep but it also gives me hope for people.

I also truly loved Patrick Ness's Chaos Walking trilogy (begins with The Knife of Never Letting Go). I can't quite remember how the series ends, so I have a little more hesitation about this recommendation for your purposes, but it's a great series.

Also, perhaps Saving Francesca by Melina Marchetta.

thank you so much christy. the Chaos Walking trilogy looks very promising. i tried reading Saving Francesca but i have a profound allergy to puppy love. looks like Chaos Walking won't have much of that, hey?

the only memoir i read in the last year was Let's Pretend This Never Happened: A Mostly True Memoir which i thought was hilarious. her humor is a little coarse for some, and some people find her too forced-quirky, but i did not, at least, not once it got going. it is not the kind of thing that is going to help anyone's hard times with meaningful tips for enduring life's challenges, but it made me laugh out loud several times, once the admittedly forced-quirky first chapter or so was gotten over.

but on the YA tip, marchetta is freaking amazing. saving francesca is not my favorite, for the reasons you named, but it is still very good. i prefer On the Jellicoe Road and The Piper's Son, both of which are highly sophisticated and not YA-feeling at all.

people love marchetta, so i was really disappointed that i had to stop reading Francesca. i just requested The Piper's Son from the library. thank you!

Some of my favorite "YA" ::

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

The Book Thief

The Bride's Farewell

The Outsiders

"A profound allergy to puppy love?" In what context? And, I agree on Book Thief and Chaos Walking Trilogy...but the trilogy does not end in a shiny way...not in a dull hate the world sort of way either, though.

Side note: I am still not won over by Marchetta, but she was the first author I thought of when you opened suggestions up to YA.

As for Memoirs, I have only read one that has stayed with me, and I don't know if it fits. Comes the Darkness, Comes the Light: A Memoir of Cutting, Healing, and Hope

Jo ::

Have you read Wonder?

hi elizabeth, tommie, and katie. for some reason i didn't get notification of these new messages. i am reading marchetta's Piper's Son and i must say that i'm finding it pretty impressive. i don't know if it would be saving from the horror were i still experiencing it -- it's a subtle, almost meditative book about pain, not a book that grabs you by the throat like the ones i mentioned and, most recently, Code Name Verity. probably if i were still having a hard time i couldn't quite get through it. the subtlety asks the reader to get inside the pain a bit too much, and i would feel i have enough of my own. but it is a really impressive book.

still, i understand people's not getting marchetta. it's like she weaves stories with the tiniest, most flimsical thread, and if you read fast or not carefully enough you miss everything. i get how one could get frustrated with that. as i said, if i were in a different place i couldn't do it.

i haven't read any of the other books you recommend and i'll check them out for sure. thank you.

i finished reading The Piper's Son and i want to thank karen for recommending it and christy for recommending marchetta in the first place. it is indeed a very sophisticated and impressive book. it also, remarkably, helped break the last residue of resistance i had against books marked as YA. so this readers advisory request started off with adult memoirs and led me straight into a revision of one of my most-closely-held prejudices. i'm now reading elizebeth's wein's The Winter Prince, which is not only (presumably) YA, but also speculative (yes? i am a bit fuzzy on this latter category but i have always stayed away from non-realist fiction)! i think karen should be happy: readers advisory has led me down new paths, and helped a lot in the process. thank you.

BOOM! i'm so glad. you have made me happy with this comment, right when i needed a happy.

yay! christmas happy! merry christmas!

thank you christy for suggesting The Knife of Never Letting Go. great read!!!!

thank you for coming back to report on your success! so few people do! i'm glad you liked it!

i have been going down the list like a good schoolgirl, even though the hard times have long passed. this thread introduced me to YA and i have been reading YA ONLY ever since, so i'm extremely grateful to you all. i used to disdain YA. now i see it has something that you can count on that you cannot count on in non-YA: the kids triumphs over adversity. it's very helpful when you are having a rough time of any kind. it makes you stronger and hopeful.

i don't know any more who recommended Never Fall Down (sub-threads opened all over the place, in my book reviews and in personal messages) but that is spectacular and was extremely moving to me.

i used to be the same way with YA. mostly because the YA of my own youth was so flimsy. there is so much good YA being published these days, and there is such immediate gratification and a refreshing lack of posturing. i have enjoyed a lot of it

Bear grylls has an awesome up lifting autobiography.

Give it a try.

Oh and it's not a memoir or autobiography... But Too Bright to See Too Loud to Hear is great.

hi jason, i looked at bear gryllis and he has about 2,000 books and they all look memoiristic. which one did you have in mind?

thanks for recommending Too Bright. i have heard about it from other people. i'll certainly read it sooner or later!

jo wrote: "hi jason, i looked at bear gryllis and he has about 2,000 books and they all look memoiristic. which one did you have in mind?

thanks for recommending Too Bright. i have heard about it from other..."


Oh I'm so sorry! totally my fault. i try to clarify but i was on my cell. bear grylls: mud sweat and tears.
It isn't like, dealing with trauma or psychological issues, but it is uplifting.

I have tons of books, though that fall in this area. Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen, Running with Scissors by Augusten Burroughs, Searching for Mercy Street: My Journey Back to My Mother, Anne Sexton...I Never Promised You a Rose Garden.

Others that may interest you, but maybe not: It's Kind of a Funny Story ; What is the What (you might find this one uplifting, but it doesn't really have a mental illness/challenging mental state, etc storyline).

to bright is great, but it took me to about 45 percent (kindle) to get into it.... the style is a little rough and the dates (which change back and forth) can be confusing.

thank you jason!

jo wrote: "thank you jason!"

you may be into lithium for medea , madness (by hornbacher) and/or an unquiet mind (by jamison) ... too

i think i've pretty much exhausted all the madness memoirs i'm interested in, though i confess that i've always wanted and never gotten around to reading Mercy Street. i am going to check out the others, though.

after having read Never Fall Down, What Is the What is def. a consideration!

On the memoir front, if you haven't read Diana Athill (http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/...), I highly recommend her.

hmmm. a few words about it, phbekka?

Aah, that's where I suck at these things. She's British, worked as an editor for years, had a complicated friendship with Jean Rhys (author of Wide Sargasso Sea). The first book of hers I read is Somewhere Towards the End (http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/59...), written when she was 91. Some memoirs are remarkable because of the adventures and/or travails in a person's life, her memoirs are remarkable because of the *way* she writes about her life. Very honest and straightforward, memoirs that make me curl up on the couch to read and feel delicious doing so.

you seem pretty damn good about this! thank you!