The most recommended books about psychiatric hospitals

This is the 75th anniversary edition of a book first published in 1946, a best-seller at the time, and the impetus for changes in the treatment of psychiatric patients. The narrator, novelist Victoria Cunningham, finds herself incarcerated in a corrupt and badly-run hospital with little memory of how she got there; I was disturbed by the way she had to navigate through an obscure, nonsensical bureaucracy that seems more insane than any of the hospital’s patients. Virginia is supported by her loving and loyal husband, but at times she loses track of her memories and forgets who he is. The book is frightening—especially given that it’s based on the author’s own experiences at Bellevue Hospital in New York—but also intimate and moving.

McCarthy was perhaps the greatest living American writer until his passing on June 13, 2023. Born in 1933, he published Stella Maris in December 2022, which was his final work and a companion piece to The Passenger, released just six weeks prior.

Stella Maris is a brief work composed entirely of dialogue between Alicia Western—"a twenty-year-old Jewish-Caucasian female. Attractive, possibly anorexic. She arrived at the facility six days ago, seemingly by bus and without luggage"—and her therapist. Their discussions span topics from her life and traumas to the foundations of mathematics, Los Alamos, solipsism, Platonism, and Amati violins, to name a few.

While McCarthy was neither a mathematician nor a physicist, he spent considerable time with scientists at the Santa Fe Institute. As a result, his references to math, logic, or physics never seem amiss. 

I first read The Passenger, then read Stella Maris — twice.… show more.

In my own precious novel-reading time, I have found myself turning to books that look frankly and fondly at familial imperfection.

This book by Miriam Toews follows Hattie, her 11-year-old niece Thebes, and her 15-year-old nephew Logan as they cross the US in a dilapidated camper van, looking for the kids’ father.

Toews combines comedy with proper heartbreak to remind us that, in a messed-up world, we are sustained by the love of our families–flaws and all.

Oh, this book was just magical. And the ending – wow! Everything comes together and how. The writing is just beautiful and the story is enchanting. This book transported me and wowed me - truly I wasn’t expecting to love it as much as I did. I cried so much while reading this book – the language is so poetic and lyrical. It is a story about stories and it is a masterpiece in my opinion. 

Dr. Rana Awdish, a critical care physician, describes the sudden and catastrophic illness that causes a miscarriage and lands her in the ICU, in multi-organ failure, at the hospital where she works.

Her arduous recovery is nothing short of a miracle. I appreciated her perspective as a physician, trying to advocate for herself, even while she is seriously ill. She draws on stories of her patients and shares her well-founded frustrations with our healthcare system.

This powerful story will be appreciated by those who have experienced a serious illness and anyone who works in health care. 

Although dated in style, it is a fascinating and intriguing read, a page-turning mystery with plot twists, multiple points of view, and unreliable narrators. I listened to this old classic with narration by the late great Ian Holm (Bilbo Baggins in the Lord of the Rings trilogy). 

The characters are the high point, however, just staying on the right side of caricature and making the reader truly invested in the outcome. 

This classic account by a renowned sociologist is critical reading for those interested in the anti-psychiatry movement, a crusade that viewed psychiatry as more coercive than therapeutic and, in some cases, questioned the reality of mental illness itself. For one year, Goffman embedded himself in St. Elizabeth’s mental hospital in Washington, DC, where he ultimately concluded that the defining features of the asylum – similar to those of prisons and other “total institutions” – did more to shape the patient’s behavior than the supposed illness for which the patient had been admitted in the first place. Goffman’s observations left a significant impact on popular ideas about asylum care and helped contribute to widespread deinstitutionalization several decades later.

Nellie Bly was one of the great muckraking reporters in American history. She pretends to be insane and is admitted to the “mad house.” Along the way, she exposes the horrible treatment of those suffering from mental illness, but of her treatment in a boarding home, where spoiled beef was served.

Many at the Women’s Lunatic Asylum on Roosevelt Island suffered no mental illness; they simply didn’t know how to speak English, she wrote. “I left the insane ward with pleasure and regret—pleasure that I was once more able to enjoy the free breath of heaven; regret that I could not have brought with me some of the unfortunate women who lived and suffered with me, and who, I am convinced, are just as sane as I was and am now myself.”

Her reporting led to a grand jury investigation and reforms inside the asylum.

This book’s celebration of rebelliousness of spirit and anti-institutionalism is why I like it.

Set in a psychiatric hospital, like Regeneration, its medical staff are closer in spirit to Dr. Yealland in that book, who prefers inflicting pain in order to cure than to the humane Dr. Rivers. I enjoyed the humour and the scandalous behaviour of McMurphy, the sane con-man in the asylum who battles the authoritarian and controlling Nurse Ratched. It is very much in the spirit of the anti-establishment 1960s when it was written.

Other inmates rebel too and draw down Ratched’s ire upon themselves, leading to suicide, and McMurphy attacks Ratched because, however rebellious, he cannot stomach this tragedy. There is a sad and bleak end for him, as ‘authority’ wins out. The ending is one of hope, but not for McMurphy. Like the other books on my list so far, this, too, was filmed.

Before I read Garnethill, my perception of the typical Glasgow crime novel protagonist was that of the hard-drinking, rule-breaking, middle-aged, divorced male detective – in other words, the usual cliché. Maureen O’Donnell shatters that. A survivor of childhood abuse, she’s treated as an unreliable eyewitness and potential murder suspect due to her mental health history and turns detective to entrap and unmask a killer who’s been targeting others like her – women whose voices are ignored because they’re deemed to be “crazy”. Packed with colourful characters and raw, angry prose, Denise Mina’s debut novel has a rough-and-ready quality compared to her later work, but which is entirely suited to the subject matter – a defiant battle cry against both the men who abuse their power and those who look the other way.