Books like An Unquiet Mind

01

Lost Connections

Johann Hari · Health

Lost Connections is Johann Hari's argument that depression and anxiety are not primarily chemical imbalances in the brain but responses to social and environmental conditions — disconnection from meaningful work, close relationships, the natural world, a secure future, and status that feels deserved.

Both dig into mental health.

02

The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat

Oliver Sacks · Psychology

Oliver Sacks was a neurologist who thought in stories.

A kindred psychology read.

03

The Noonday Demon

Andrew Solomon · Health

The Noonday Demon is Andrew Solomon's exhaustive, literary account of depression — his own experience of it, its science and treatment history, its cultural and political dimensions, and the lives of people living with it across the world.

Shares mental health and memoir with An Unquiet Mind.

04

The Anxious Generation

Jonathan Haidt · Psychology

The Anxious Generation is Jonathan Haidt's argument that a phone-based childhood — shaped above all by smartphones and social media arriving in the early 2010s — has caused a serious and measurable deterioration in the mental health of adolescents in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia.

Both dig into mental health.

05

Good Reasons for Bad Feelings: Insights from the Frontier of Evolutionary Psychiatry

Randolph M. Nesse · Psychology

Randolph Nesse spent forty years as a psychiatrist and evolutionary biologist asking a question most of his colleagues found strange: why did natural selection leave us so vulnerable to anxiety, depression, and other forms of suffering?

Both dig into mental health.

06

Stolen Focus: Why You Can't Pay Attention—and How to Think Deeply Again

Johann Hari · Psychology

Johann Hari's argument is that the collapse of attention is not a personal failing but a political crisis.

Both dig into mental health.

07

The Compassionate Mind

Paul Gilbert · Psychology

The Compassionate Mind is Paul Gilbert's comprehensive account of Compassion Focused Therapy, the approach he developed over decades of clinical work with people whose suffering was heavily compounded by shame, self-criticism, and an inability to feel comforted or to comfort themselves.

Both dig into mental health.

08

The Myth of Mental Illness: Foundations of a Theory of Personal Conduct

Thomas Szasz · Psychology

Thomas Szasz's thesis, first published in 1961, is that mental illness is a category error.

Both dig into mental health.

09

The Perfection Trap

Thomas Curran · Psychology

The Perfection Trap is a social psychologist's case that perfectionism isn't a personality quirk or an asset but a cultural epidemic — and that rates of perfectionism have risen sharply over the past three decades, driven by specific social and economic forces.

Both dig into mental health.

10

Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest

Suzanne Simard · Science

Suzanne Simard is the forest ecologist who discovered that trees communicate and share resources through underground mycorrhizal fungal networks — the research that gave rise to the concept of the "mother tree" and, at several removes, Peter Wohlleben's popular writing on the subject.

Both dig into memoir.

11

How to Change Your Mind

Michael Pollan · Science

Michael Pollan came to psychedelics late in life, as a skeptic.

Both dig into mental health.

12

Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends On It

Kamal Ravikant · Self-help

Kamal Ravikant wrote this book quickly after hitting what he describes as rock bottom — a period of serious illness, professional collapse, and psychological despair.

Both dig into mental health.