Books like

Books like Madness: A Bipolar Life

12 books with a reading profile close to Madness: A Bipolar Life by Marya Hornbacher. Inward-looking; a moderate read.

1

The Liars' Club

by Mary Karr

Also inward-looking · memoir, narrative

Published in 1995, Mary Karr’s memoir recreates her volatile childhood in the 1960s within a gritty East Texas oil town.
2

Girl, Interrupted

by Susanna Kaysen

Also inward-looking · memoir, narrative

Susanna Kaysen recounts her eighteen-month stay at McLean Hospital, a psychiatric facility, after a suicide attempt and a diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder in 1967.
3

An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness

by Kay Redfield Jamison

Also inward-looking · memoir, narrative

Kay Redfield Jamison provides a clinical and personal account of living with manic-depressive illness while maintaining a career as a professor of psychiatry.
4

We Are Water

by Wally Lamb

Also inward-looking · narrative, literary

Annie Oh, a Connecticut artist, leaves her husband of twenty-seven years for her art dealer, Viveca, a woman, and announces their wedding.
5

This Boy's Life

by Tobias Wolff

Also inward-looking · memoir, narrative

Tobias Wolff’s memoir recounts his nomadic upbringing in the 1950s as he travels across the United States with his divorced mother to escape an abusive boyfriend.
6

Little Altars Everywhere

by Rebecca Wells

Also inward-looking · narrative, literary

Siddalee Walker is a successful theater director in Seattle who must reconcile with her difficult mother Vivi, one of the Ya-Yas, a group of Louisiana women who have been friends since childhood.
7

The Prince of Tides

by Pat Conroy

Also inward-looking · narrative, literary

Tom Wingo, an unemployed teacher from the South Carolina lowcountry, travels to New York City after his twin sister, Savannah, attempts suicide.
8

This Is How You Lose Her

by Junot Díaz

Also inward-looking · narrative, literary

Yunior is a Dominican-American man who struggles with chronic infidelity and the emotional fallout of his choices.
9

Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia

by Marya Hornbacher

Also inward-looking · memoir, narrative

Marya Hornbacher chronicles her fifteen-year struggle with severe eating disorders, detailing the physiological and psychological mechanics of anorexia and bulimia.
10

A Place for Us

by Fatima Farheen Mirza

Also inward-looking · narrative, literary

In California, an Indian-American Muslim family reunites for a wedding, marking the return of the estranged youngest son, Amar.
11

She’s Come Undone

by Wally Lamb

Also inward-looking · narrative, literary

Dolores Price begins her story as a smart-mouthed girl in the 1950s whose life unravels after her parents’ marriage collapses and a neighbor commits a violent act of sexual assault against her.
12

The Year of Magical Thinking

by Joan Didion

Also inward-looking · memoir, narrative

Joan Didion documents the first twelve moon cycles following the sudden death of her husband, writer John Gregory Dunne.

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