On a road to bettering and learning more about myself each and everyday. What helped you understand what makes you tick and recover from trauma.

They don’t necessarily have to be “self help” books. But anything that improved your state of mind in a positive way. Or made you look a life in a more positive manner.

Infinite jest

as a man thinketh
hagakure
what I think about when i'm running - haruki murakami
mr. palomar - italo calvino

Shook one by charlemange
The happiness trap
F*ck feelings

yeah really a kind of bible tbh

Damn near everything by DFW is insightful regarding these issues, essays, short stories, etc, and the essays are definitely more accessible, but IJ is particularly brilliant in discussing them. Still, for newcomers never a wrong start:

Currently finishing his biography... I learned that biographies are my entertainment-reading, for some reason I find them really gripping. DFW is definitely far from perfectly likable, as he might seem at first (or kinda seemed to me). Still v fascinating character and there's some real gems in the quotes from his mail exchange with Delillo and Franzen lol

btw, how r u doing famo? :]

can also recommend

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath (classic for a reason, brilliant prose)
No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai (this s*** is DARK)

also currently finishing:
Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up To Me by Richard Farina, which Earl said he read in Samoa like “like 10 or 11 times.” Also the dude was close friends with both Thomas Pynchon and Bob Dylan..... about depression in a more indirect way, but it's there for sure. He's really good at describing a brain in overdrive in social situations

Appreciate all the replies!

Someone on KTT recommended “No Mud, No Lotus” by a Thich Nhat Hanh

I picked it up and found it fascinating. It wasn’t a contrived self help book, it was a collection of useful wisdom for appreciating life in the form of happiness and suffering, including some nice religious anecdotes too.

It’s nothing radical, but a precise book worth checking out

some f***er deleted the infinite jest thread lol

goodreads.com/book/show/13932.The_Noonday_Demon

capitalism and schizophrenia

The Power of Now helped me out when I was around 18 or 19. You basically get the point of the book pretty quickly but it's a short read anyway, tbh it does come off as self help but it's the only one ive tolerated

deleuze had thoughts on depression too? I'd reckon it goes something like "capitalism is the root of your depression"?

I reread this once lockdown began and it really helped me

the noonday demon

This a book to give you depression

The Catcher in the Rye

Y'all suck.

Read Prozac Nation

A Man's Search For Meaning or anything from V. Frankl covering logotherapy

seems whack tbh

first half of that book is great, but i could do without the logotherapy. nice concept for its time i guess.

Really? You think it doesn't work? I feel like it drew parallels to the thought process I had when I got to overcome my lowest point personally

i'm not saying there isn't a chance it could work for some people; it's just antiquated and the field of psychotherapy is at a better place now. there is no empirical evidence for it's use afaik, and when it is taught (the rare times it is), it's seems like its just for historical purposes

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Longer_Human