A
Beautiful Mind
How could you, a mathematician, believe that extraterrestrials were
sending you messages?" the visitor from Harvard asked the West Virginian
with the movie-star looks and Olympian manner.
"Because the ideas I had about supernatural beings came to me the same way
my mathematical ideas did," came the answer. "So I took them seriously."
Thus begins the true story of John Nash, the mathematical genius who was a
legend by age thirty when he slipped into madness, and who -- thanks to
the selflessness of a beautiful woman and the loyalty of the mathematics
community -- emerged after decades of ghostlike existence to win a Nobel
Prize and world acclaim. The inspiration for a major motion picture,
Sylvia Nasar's award-winning biography is a drama about the mystery of the
human mind, triumph over incredible adversity, and the healing power of
love. --Amazon Review
Buy the: Book | VHS | DVD
The
Hours
Winner of NAMI's 2003 Oustanding Media Award for a Dramatic Motion
Picture; Nicole Kidman received an Academy Award for her performance as
Virginia Woolf. An authentic, balanced, although tragic portrayal of
mental illness, emphasizing individual dignity and the element of choice
in embracing life. -- NAMI Review
Buy the: Book
| VHS | DVD
Nature
Lessons: A Novel
Winner of one of NAMI's 2003 Literary Awards. A woman returns to South
Africa to search for her missing mother and truths about her family under
apartheid. It explores the paranoia that can be rooted either in mental
illness or an oppressive political regime. What is "real" and what is
"paranoid" may be confused or depend on a person's class or racial
perspective, and their impact affects a child's past, present, and future.--
NAMI Review
Buy the book!
Rescuing
Patty Hearst: Memories From A Decade Gone Mad
Winner of one of NAMI's 2003 Literary Awards. One year after Patty Hearst
was kidnapped and robbed a bank in 1974, the author writes, "my mother
lost her mind and kidnapped my sister and me to our family cottage in
rural, coastal Virginia. " She believed they had been inducted into a
secret army. "Trusted with setting up a field hospital, we lived in that
cottage for over three years. " Written from the perspective of an adult
child of a parent with mental illness, it explores how relatives,
neighbors and the medical and legal systems failed to provide the help
they needed. -- NAMI Review
Buy the book!
I
Know This Much Is True
An epic novel covering three dysfunctional generations. A 40 year-old man
whose twin has schizophrenia struggles with issues of identity, emotion,
alienation, and renewal. His twin is both sympathetic and significant in
offering perspective on events. Dramatic tension is mixed with humor and a
reasonably happy ending. --NAMI Review
Buy the book!
Call
Me Anna: The Autobiography of Patty Duke and A Brilliant Madness:
Living with Manic-Depressive Illness
One book tells actress Patty Duke's story while the other shares
information about bipolar disorder, based on her first-hand experience.
Read separately or together.
-- NAMI Review
Buy: Call
Me Anna | Brilliant
Madness
9
Highland Road: Sane Living for the Mentally Ill
A non-fiction account of a group home in Glen Cove, New York, including
intimate portraits of the resident, their crises and therapy as well as
the ignorance and fears of wealthy neighbors in the community who tried to
prevent the home from opening. The author is a reporter for The New York
Times and winner of the 1999 NAMI Outstanding Media Award for
investigative reporting. --NAMI Review
Buy the book!
Undercurrents:
A Life Beneath the Surface
A psychologist's highly readable memoir of her year-long descent and
recovery from depression--including electroconvulsive therapy (ECT).
Marked by wit, candor, irony and hope. Not many books about depression
cause a reader to laugh out loud -- while also feeling the author's pain
-- but this one does. --NAMI Review
Buy the book!
