Books for Mental Health Awareness Month
Mental health matters each and every day, but it’s not always easy to prioritize our own well-being. We’ve tried to make it just a little easier by curating the below selection of books, in the hopes these resources can help you along the way. Happy reading.
In America, we teach that strength means holding back tears and shaming your own feelings. In the Black community, these pressures are especially poignant. Poor mental health outcomes– including diagnoses of depression and anxiety, reliance on prescription drugs, and suicide–have skyrocketed in the past decade.
In this book, actor Courtney B. Vance seeks to change this trajectory. Along with professional expertise from famed psychologist Dr. Robin L. Smith (popularly known as “Dr. Robin”), Courtney B. Vance explores issues of grief, relationships, identity, and race through the telling of his own most formative experiences. Together, they provide a guide for Black men navigating life’s ups and downs, reclaiming mental well-being, and examining broken pieces to find whole, full-hearted living.
Self-care is an act of revolution. It’s time to revolutionize mental health in the Black community.
“A thoughtful, wise, empathetic book that has the capacity to save lives. ” (Kirkus)
“…an inspiring story of what [Black men] can achieve personally and professionally when they have the tools and support necessary to examine their pain and find their joy.” (New York Journal of Books)
Asian Americans are experiencing a racial reckoning regarding their identity, inspiring them to radically reconsider the cultural frameworks that enabled their assimilation into American culture. As Asian Americans investigate the personal and societal effects of longstanding cultural narratives suggesting they take up as little space as possible, their mental health becomes critically important. Yet despite the fact that over 18 million people of Asian descent live in the United States today—they are the racial group least likely to seek out mental health services.
Permission to Come Home takes Asian Americans on an empowering journey toward reclaiming their mental health. Weaving her personal narrative as a Taiwanese American together with her insights as a clinician and evidence-based tools, Dr. Jenny T. Wang explores a range of life areas that call for attention, offering readers the permission to question, feel, rage, say no, take up space, choose, play, fail, and grieve. Above all, she offers permission to return closer to home, a place of acceptance, belonging, healing, and freedom. For Asian Americans and Diaspora, this book is a necessary road map for the journey to wholeness.
“Dr. Jenny T. Wang has been an incredible resource for Asian mental health. I believe that her knowledge, presence, and activism for mental health in the Asian American/Immigrant community have been invaluable and groundbreaking. I am so very grateful that she exists.”—Steven Yeun, actor, The Walking Dead and Minari
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Use the hidden foundations of mindfulness to rediscover calm and reclaim your life in our chaotic world.
There are moments in life that decide your fate. They ripple into the future and dictate how you experience the world in the moments that follow; either positive and uplifting, dark and chaotic, or flat and dull.
What if you could recognize these moments before they seized control of your life? What if you could use them to set sail for a better future? What if all moments, big and small, could be harnessed this way?
In Deeper Mindfulness, Oxford Professor Mark Williams and Dr Danny Penman reunite to present a new eight-week guided meditation program that takes mindfulness to the next level. Deeper Mindfulness reveals how the latest advances in neuroscience, combined with millennia old wisdom, can be used to transform your life. These discoveries open the doors to a deeper layer of mindfulness known as the 'feeling tone'. This sets the 'background color' that tinges your entire experience of life. It is also the tipping point from which you can reclaim your life in an increasingly stressful and chaotic world.
Proven effective at treating anxiety, stress and depression, the practices in Deeper Mindfulness offer a new and more fruitful direction for both novice and experienced meditators. It also allows the rest of us to approach life with renewed strength, vigor and equanimity.
From the founder of Scare Your Soul, this self-help guide will help you find the courage to embrace all of life's uncertainties so that you can live a more elaborate life of your dreams.
Like a muscle, courage grows stronger the more you exercise it. Scare Your Soul will not only teach you how to exercise courage–it will guide you in taking small, boundary-pushing actions to expand your comfort zone.
Combining research on positive psychology with real-life stories, international thought leader and happiness entrepreneur Scott Simon challenges you to confront your limiting beliefs. With writing prompts and activities, Scare Your Soul is an interactive roadmap to building bravery.
If you crave an extraordinary life but feel like you don’t know how to take “extra” ordinary action, this book is for you.
It’s time to Scare Your Soul.
USA TODAY Bestseller. "Exceptional… Spiritual Anatomy blends the wisdom of yogic philosophy with practical techniques to unlock your infinite potential.” — Deepak Chopra, New York Times bestselling author of Quantum Body
From the internationally bestselling author of The Heartfulness Way comes a journey to the center of our consciousness, mapping a path for you to connect to your highest self through Heartfulness meditation and guided chakra practices.
Acting as a sort of atlas for consciousness, the chakras—the centers of spiritual energy that comprise our spiritual anatomy—lead us back to our hearts, ourselves, and the sustainable happiness and meaning we crave. Along the way readers will learn:
- The role and importance of the chakras
- What blocks our chakras and how to clean them
- Meditation techniques that bring you closer to the heart’s center
- How connecting deeply with our chakras can open our hearts, minds, and souls
As grounding as it is groundbreaking, Spiritual Anatomy is a must-read for seekers, meditators, and anyone who wants to cultivate joy in their life.
Want to quit? Good. Learn to shape your life without fear—at work, at home, in relationships, and beyond.
“Compelling,” (Cal Newport) “Liberating,” (Amy Dickinson) and “as entertaining as it is important” (Steven Levitt).
Simone Biles quit the Olympics. Prince Harry and Meghan Markle quit The Firm. Millions of people have quit their jobs, seeking happiness and defining success on their own terms. Is it a mistake? As Pulitzer prize-winning journalist Julia Keller found out, it’s not. And, in fact, it might even save your life.
Diving into ‘the neuroscience of nope’ and the cultural messages that drive our reluctance to throw in the towel, Keller dismantles the myth of perseverance once and for all. Because grit isn't always great. Sticking it out doesn't always pay off. And quitting can be an unexpected act of self-love.
Quitting: A Life Strategy reminds us that, in order to live meaningful, satisfying lives, we have to be able to say “no”—full stop. With Keller’s guidance, readers will learn:
- The art of the quasi quit.
- How quitting makes space for key breakthroughs.
- Why bootstrapping is a lie.
- How to manage guilt and shame.
Weaving cutting-edge scientific research with incisive pop culture commentary and conversations with people who have made profound change in their own lives, Keller gives readers the confidence they need to pull the plug.
"If you’re thinking about quitting a job or leaving a marriage, don’t—at least not until you have read this book.” ―Joseph T. Hallinan, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and bestselling author of Why We Make Mistakes
Amazon Editor’s Pick for Best Books
In the tradition of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, a page-turning 93-year history of Crownsville Hospital, one of the nation’s last segregated asylums, that the New York Times described as “fascinating…meticulous research” and bestselling author Clint Smith endorsed it as “a book that left me breathless.”
On a cold day in March of 1911, officials marched twelve Black men into the heart of a forest in Maryland. Under the supervision of a doctor, the men were forced to clear the land, pour cement, lay bricks, and harvest tobacco. When construction finished, they became the first twelve patients of the state’s Hospital for the Negro Insane. For centuries, Black patients have been absent from our history books. Madness transports readers behind the brick walls of a Jim Crow asylum.
In Madness, Peabody and Emmy award-winning journalist Antonia Hylton tells the 93-year-old history of Crownsville Hospital, one of the last segregated asylums with surviving records and a campus that still stands to this day in Anne Arundel County, Maryland. She blends the intimate tales of patients and employees whose lives were shaped by Crownsville with a decade-worth of investigative research and archival documents. Madness chronicles the stories of Black families whose mental health suffered as they tried, and sometimes failed, to find safety and dignity. Hylton also grapples with her own family’s experiences with mental illness, and the secrecy and shame that it reproduced for generations.
As Crownsville Hospital grew from an antebellum-style work camp to a tiny city sitting on 1,500 acres, the institution became a microcosm of America’s evolving battles over slavery, racial integration, and civil rights. During its peak years, the hospital’s wards were overflowing with almost 2,700 patients. By the end of the 20th-century, the asylum faded from view as prisons and jails became America’s new focus.
In Madness, Hylton traces the legacy of slavery to the treatment of Black people’s bodies and minds in our current mental healthcare system. It is a captivating and heartbreaking meditation on how America decides who is sick or criminal, and who is worthy of our care or irredeemable.
A trusted grief expert shares advice on how to navigate the loss of a loved one in this incisive and compassionate guide: “calm, lucid prose… humanizing exploration of coping with the life-changing tides of loss” (Kirkus Reviews).
As seen on Humans of New York, Jonathan Conyers introduces us to the teachers, his debate coach, a homeless man, and a boy named Diego who changed his life. Booklist calls it “a moving story about finding your supporters and building your future.”
A “ride-or-die chick” is a woman who holds down her family and community. She’s your girl that you can call up in the middle of the night to bail you out of jail, and you know she’ll show up and won’t ask any questions. Her ride-or-die trope becomes a problem when she does it indiscriminately. She does anything for her family, friends, and significant other, even at the cost of her own well-being. “No” is not in her vocabulary. Her self-worth is connected to how much labor she can provide for others. She goes above and beyond for everyone in every aspect of her life—work, family, church, even if it’s not reciprocated, and doesn’t require it to be because she’s a “strong Black woman” and everyone’s favorite ride-or-die chick. To her, love should be earned, and there’s no limit to what she’ll do for it.
In this book, author, adjunct professor of sociology, and former therapist Shanita Hubbard disrupts the ride-or-die complex and argues that this way of life has left Black women exhausted, overworked, overlooked, and feeling depleted. She suggests that Black women are susceptible to this mentality because it’s normalized in our culture. It rings loud in your favorite hip-hop songs, and it even shows up in the most important relationship you will ever have—the one with yourself.
Compassionate, candid, hard-hitting, and 100 percent unapologetic, Ride or Die melds Hubbard’s entertaining conversations with her Black girlfriends and her personal experiences as a redeemed ride-or-die chick and a former “captain of the build-a-brother team” to fervently dismantle cultural norms that require Black women to take care of everyone but themselves.
Ride or Die urges you to expel the myth that your self-worth is connected to how much labor you provide others and guides you toward healing. Using hip hop as a backdrop to explore norms that are harmful to Black women, Hubbard shows the ways you may be unknowingly perpetuating this harm within your relationships. This book is an urgent call for you to pull the plug on the ride-or-die chick.
“You can trust him.” –Tabitha Brown
IT AIN’T EASY GETTING YOUR SHIT TOGETHER
THIS BOOK IS THE SOLUTION
If any of this sounds like you, it’s best you start reading this book now!
- You seek more fulfilling relationships and dating experiences
- You’re ready to shake off shame about past mistakes and step into your power
- You want to say “see ya” to the toxic people and emotional gut-punchers
- Your “people pleaser” days are over and it’s time to learn how to effectively say no
He knows you need help—whether financial, spiritual, or in a relationship—because you never learned how to properly handle the hurt and anger you’ve experienced in the past, it has become the emotional trash in the way of being your best self. Don’t nobody want that!
Whether it’s fixing your family issues, situationships, money, or frenemies, MJ offers sage advice about how to stop blocking yourself from bigger and better things.
This isn’t your gentle guide on breathing or journaling. MJ serves up no holds barred advice on how to navigate your emotions that will help you disrupt cycles of trauma, create boundaries, and transform into a goddess of emotional wholeness. Get the F*ck Out Your Own Way will help you learn how to make better choices and decisions. It will set you on the right path for a happier emotional life once and for all.
GMA’s 15 Spectacular New Books to Read in September
Ms. Magazine’s September 2023 Reads for the Rest of Us
The Millions “Most Anticipated” Books of 2023
LitHub’s Most Anticipated Books of 2023
Never-before-seen unpublished works by award-winning American literary icon Ntozake Shange, featuring essays, plays, and poems from the archives of the seminal Black feminist writer who stands alongside giants like Toni Morrison and Alice Walker, curated by National Book Award winner Imani Perry with a foreword by New York Times bestselling author Tarana Burke.
In the late ’60s, Ntozake Shange was a student at Barnard College discovering her budding talent as a writer, publishing in her school’s literary journal, and finding her unique voice. By the time she left us in 2018, Shange had scorched blazing trails across countless pages and stages, redefining genre and form as we know them, each verse, dance, and song a love letter to Black women and girls, and the community at large.
Sing a Black Girl’s Song is a new posthumous collection of Shange’s unpublished poems, essays, and plays from throughout the life of the seminal Black feminist writer. In these pages we meet young Shange, learn the moments that inspired for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf…, travel with an eclectic family of musicians, sit on “The Couch” opposite Shange’s therapist, and discover plays written after for colored girls’ international success. Sing a Black Girl’s Song houses, in their original form, the literary rebel’s politically charged verses from the Black Arts Movement era alongside her signature tender rhythm and cadence that capture the minutia and nuance of Black life. Sing a Black Girl’s Song is the continuation of a literary tradition that has bolstered generations of writers and a long-lasting gift from one of the fiercest and most highly celebrated artists of our time.
“An extraordinary, powerful book” – David Quammen, author of The Heartbeat of the Wild and Breathless
A compassionate exploration of scientific wonder that offers “a fresh perspective on life, death, and the bittersweet consequences of impermanence,” (Jon Krakauer) as illuminated through the tragic dual cancer diagnoses of author Dr. Alan Townsend’s wife and daughter.
A decade ago, Dr. Alan Townsend’s family received two unthinkable, catastrophic diagnoses: his 4-year-old daughter and his brilliant scientist wife developed unrelated, life-threatening forms of brain cancer. As he witnessed his young daughter fight during the courageous final months of her mother’s life, Townsend – a lifelong scientist – was indelibly altered. He began to see scientific inquiry as more than a source of answers to a given problem, but also as a lifeboat: a lens on the world that could help him find peace with the painful realities he could not change. Through scientific wonder, he found ways to bring meaning to his darkest period.
At a time when society’s relationship with science is increasingly polarized while threats to human life on earth continue to rise, Townsend offers a balanced, moving perspective on the common ground between science and religion through the spiritual fulfillment he found in his work. Awash in Townsend's electrifying and breathtaking prose, THIS ORDINARY STARDUST offers hope that life can carry on even in the face of near-certain annihilation.
In 1954, researchers at the newly formed National Institute of Mental Health set out to study the genetics of schizophrenia. When they got word that four 24-year-old identical quadruplets had been diagnosed with the mental illness, they could hardly believe it. Here was incontrovertible proof of hereditary transmission. But the case of the pseudonymous Genain quadruplets was hardly so straightforward.
Contrary to fawning media portrayals of a picture-perfect Christian family, the sisters had endured the stuff of nightmares behind closed doors and been the object of paranoid public fantasies. Even as the sisters’ erratic behaviors became impossible to ignore and the NIMH whisked the women off for study, their sterling image did not falter. Girls and Their Monsters chronicles the extraordinary, shocking lives of the quadruplets while exploring the delusions that gripped the American psyche in the middle of the twentieth century.
Move forward in your journey and learn how to heal your emotional wounds, get unstuck, and get into healthy, loving, intimate relationships with the help of this eye-opening book.
“Exceptional… Spiritual Anatomy blends the wisdom of yogic philosophy with practical techniques to unlock your infinite potential.” — Deepak Chopra, New York Times bestselling author of Quantum Body
From the internationally bestselling author of The Heartfulness Way comes a journey to the center of our consciousness, mapping a path for readers to connect to their highest self through Heartfulness meditation and guided chakra practices.
This inspiring exploration of the recent advances in depression research and treatment shares new methods that offer promising paths to wellness.
Breaking Through Depression explores how the anatomy of the brain and the biochemistry of nerve impulses play a major role in how we view ourselves and the world. Drawing from his long-term research, Dr. Philip W. Gold makes the case for depression arising at the intersection of genetic vulnerability with stressful, disturbing life experiences that get encoded in our emotional memory. Breaking Through Depression will delve into the interplay between our anatomy and our lived experiences as the key to understanding why there are such individual differences in how we make connections with others, deal with adversity, or recover from trauma. More importantly, Dr. Gold reveals the latest breakthroughs that can heal people struggling with depression, including:
- The FDA has fast-tracked Psilocybin and Ketamine as anti-depressant treatments, which cause immediate improvement in depressive symptoms.
- Low-energy lasers have been developed that can stimulate these areas directly and painlessly to relieve symptoms in treatment-resistant patients suffering from major depression.
- Scientists are developing genetically ‘thumbprinted' antidepressants that can be individually tailored to match a person's DNA increasing their effectiveness.
- Inflammation in the body and the brain is a prominent component of depressive illness, to the point that anti-inflammatory agents are useful in the treatment of depression.
- Incredible progress with gene therapy including a treatment overcoming the BDNF gene mutation that interferes with resiliency, promotes vulnerability to depression, and inhibits the capacity of antidepressants to work effectively.
Winner of the Martin Cruz Smith Award (CALIBA)
2024 Council for Opportunity in Education National Book Club Selection
Longlisted for the Outstanding Works of Literature (OWL) Award for First Year Experience
An unflinching memoir and “invaluable resource” (Kirkus) about navigating social mobility as a first gen Latina—offering both a riveting personal story and an examination of the unacknowledged emotional tolls of being a trailblazer.
Alejandra Campoverdi has been a child on welfare, a White House aide to President Obama, a Harvard graduate, a gang member’s girlfriend, and a candidate for U.S. Congress. She’s ridden on Air Force One and in G-rides. She’s been featured in Maxim magazine and had a double mastectomy. Living a life of contradictory extremes often comes with the territory when you’re a “First and Only.” It also comes at a price.
With candor and heart, Alejandra retraces her trajectory as a Mexican American woman raised by an immigrant single mother in Los Angeles. Foregoing the tidy bullet points of her resume and instead shining a light on the spaces between them, what emerges is a powerful testimony that shatters the one-dimensional glossy narrative we are often sold of what it takes to achieve the American Dream. In this timely and revealing reflection, Alejandra draws from her own experiences to name and frame the challenges First and Onlys often face, illuminating a road to truth, healing, and change in the process.
Part memoir, part manifesto, FIRST GEN is a story of generational inheritance, aspiration, and the true meaning of belonging—a gripping journey to “reclaim the parts of ourselves we sacrificed in order to survive.”