This month apparently meant a lot of darker, intense books but good. Appropriate for February!
A Quiet Mind to Suffer With: Mental Illness, Trauma, and the Death of Christ by John Andrew Bryant
John Andrew Bryant is a pastor who suffers with OCD and describes his experience in this memoir. He gives both the harrowing and encouraging experiences he’s had through suffering gave me a good glimpse into someone’s mind with OCD.
“Incredible and overwhelming verdicts of shame, fear, and dread—dark and horrible feelings so shattering and conclusive they could only be overturned by the death of the Son of God” (14).
I also appreciated his honesty that he is not “healed” from OCD or “successfully recovered” but has learned how to manage it and suffer well. The Christian message is that we do not escape suffering in this life but learn Christlikeness through it, and this memoir is a beautiful example of that.
I would highly recommend this book to anyone who is struggling with OCD or anyone who is interested in understanding it more. I also think it is helpful on the broader topics of mental illness, trauma, and anxiety.
The Myth of Mental Illness: Foundations of a Theory of Personal Conduct by Thomas Szasz
On the other extreme of psychology, I’ve been wanting to read this classic critique of mental illness by Thomas Szasz. It is probably the most influential critique of psychology written by a 20th century University of Chicago trained MD in psychiatry and required reading for anyone in the mental health field.
Szasz’s critique is fascinating and outdated but also has a lot of parallels to Christians’ general critique of mental health and psychology. I disagree with the critique but want to understand it as well as I can. He argues that psychological diagnoses have no biological basis and lead to more harm than good. People are not held responsible for moral actions and can blame mental health with insanity pleas. I have many thoughts I’m writing in a separate post, so stay tuned!
Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson
After loving Isaacson’s biography of Elon Musk, I knew I had to keep working my way through some of his other biographies. I’m not especially interested in Steve Jobs, but I love how Isaacson did these profiles of contemporary giants by just spending years observing them and doing tons of interviews with everyone around them. It illustrates how complex and incredible people are with the sickening, inspiring, and heartwarming all wrapped up.
Isaacson also does a great job of making you interested in things you might not be naturally by explaining things well. He doesn’t just tell you about the Apple hardware system but describes the story of it coming about with all the drama of Microsoft’s system and accusations of theft.
“He has an uncanny ability to cook up gadgets that we didn’t know we needed, but then suddenly can’t live without,” someone said in the book.
That was such a crazy part of this story. I grew up with the original Apple IIc, watched the Toy Story movies (which I didn’t realize he was a big part of), got the original iPod, and have always had MacBooks. It was really amazing to see the backstory to all these inventions but also realize how little Jobs could control all the ramifications after the inventions.
Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times by Katherine May
Katherine May tells the story of her and her husband’s illnesses and needing to withdraw to “winter.” She describes learning that life is more cyclical with seasons of joy and sorrow rather than just linear.
I love the idea and theme of this book but memoirs are very personal, and sometimes the person’s story and tone just doesn’t resonate with you. I listened to it and just couldn’t get into it or appreciate her story, but there were some good moments.
The Winter of Our Discontent by John Steinbeck
A good friend said this was one of her favorite novels which was the motivation I needed to pick up my first Steinbeck book. This is his last novel and got mixed reviews. It tells the story of an upstanding family man living on the east coast after fighting in World War II, and Steinbeck said he wrote it to address the moral degeneration of American culture in the ‘50s and ‘60s.
The book is fascinating because it’s a very easy story to read, but I don’t think I understood all the depth. I definitely had to Google what happened at the end! I loved the town setting and the characters, but it was dark, and I would appreciate reading it in a group or a class to understand it better.
The Tiger Rising by Kate DiCamillo
I think of Kate DiCamillo as a children’s author who wrote Because of Winn-Dixie, so I just grabbed this book to read aloud to my son because I thought he’d like the tiger. I did not realize however that this was a much more mature story and probably more for middle grade! I think a lot went over his head, but I did appreciate how it deals with grief and is pretty powerful for a short book.
The story tells about a boy who is struggling with grief after losing his mother and then discovers a tiger in a cage near where he lives. The theme is about having trapped emotions which I loved, but I was surprised by how raw it was and would want to discuss it with a kid who read it.
Thank you Anna!! I enjoyed those reviews!! Happy reading!
I also read A Quiet Mind to suffer with, at the recommendation of a friend. It was very good, but it did strike a little to close at times. I have never been quite as bad as he was, and I was also diagnosed in second grade rather than in adulthood, but my obsessions and compulsions are similar. I also identified with the feeling that one was never a part of the world and the desire to retreat into the mansion of one's own mind, where things are just more interesting than in the real world. Thanks for the review.