When I’m overwhelmed by life’s harshness and uncertainty, I crack open my tattered copy of “Stuart Little” by E.B. White.
Tagging along with Mr. White’s titular city mouse as he tools around the countryside in search of his lost bird friend soothes and invigorates me. It’s not a cure-all, but reading about Stuart, with his abundant wit and ability to withstand heartbreak, curbs my anxiety by reminding me that there is still plenty to hope and strive for.
While many of us reach for self-help books when we’re feeling uneasy, research suggests that reading fiction can increase empathy and well-being. And creative writing in any genre — including plays, poetry, memoir and personal essays — can also edify, inspire and help sustain our sense of optimism, said Norman E. Rosenthal, a professor of psychiatry at Georgetown University School of Medicine and author of “Poetry Rx.”
Whether it’s short and sweet or on the heavier side, literature helps people gain perspective on their values and understand other people better, he said. And during stressful times, absorbing yourself in a good book can be a vitalizing act that helps “keep us going forward,” he said.
We asked writers, therapists, scholars and other experts to recommend the books that have helped them keep their chins up when the road gets rough.
‘Being Mortal,’ by Atul Gawande
In this unexpectedly uplifting deep dive, Dr. Gawande, a professor of surgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, writes about what families and medical professionals sacrifice when they emphasize prolonged treatments over quality of life. He also “shares his perspective as a doctor and a son reckoning with his father’s illness and death,” Brenda Heideman, a therapist in Madison, Wis., wrote in an email.
Ms. Heideman read this book as she was struggling with her mother’s death and the sudden decline of her father’s health. She said it gave her insight into just how complicated and difficult it can be to lose a parent, “no matter what degrees we hold.”
Seeing Dr. Gawande openly explore his questions about death, Ms. Heideman felt “much more at peace with my own,” she wrote. “I think ‘Being Mortal’ is good medicine for anyone navigating end-of-life concerns with a loved one.”
‘Meaty,’ by Samantha Irby
In Ms. Irby’s debut essay collection, she writes about the challenges she faced as a young caregiver; her experience living with Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis; and her “genuine intellectual curiosity about how other people get down” without seeming like a pervert.
Jenny Lawson, author of “How to Be Okay When Nothing is Okay,” said in an email that as someone who also copes with chronic illness, she was inspired by how Ms. Irby, who starts out describing her younger self as meek and self-conscious, has, by the book’s end, begun to “ease up and love” the woman she’s become.
Seeing the author becoming stronger “reminded me that perhaps I’m also being too hard on myself,” wrote Ms. Lawson, who added that she would recommend “Meaty” to anyone “who needs to laugh at the tragedy and comedy of life” — provided that they aren’t easily offended.
‘Gilead,’ by Marilynne Robinson
In this epistolary novel, John Ames, a 76-year-old pastor, writes to his 7-year-old son. Recently diagnosed with a heart condition and fearing he won’t live much longer, Ames takes stock of his life in Gilead, a small town in Iowa. He parses the actions of people he’s closest to while giving his own behavior the most piercing review.
This poignant exit interview — which deals with fallibility, forgiveness and a father’s regret — won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 2005.
Maryanne Wolf, a professor and director of the Center for Dyslexia, Diverse Learners and Social Justice at the University of California, Los Angeles, turns to “Gilead” when her trust in goodness falters, and she recommends it to others who have their own cosmic doubts.
“Ames, the gentle curate of Gilead, gives a timeless example of the persistence of faith,” and the passing on of faith to others, Ms. Wolf, author of “Reader, Come Home” wrote in an email.
‘Blindsided,’ by Richard M. Cohen
Mr. Cohen, a journalist and news producer who died in 2024, was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis at 25. By his 50s, when he wrote this best-selling memoir, he was legally blind, and he’d had colon cancer twice.
Dr. Tara Narula, a cardiologist at Lenox Hill Hospital and author of “The Healing Power of Resilience,” read this book while experiencing partial vision loss during medical school. In Mr. Cohen’s account of what he calls “positive denial” — or believing that people with problems can “do what needs to be done to keep going”— she found an invaluable map for moving forward, she said.
Dr. Narula, who is also the chief medical correspondent at ABC News, recommends “Blindsided” to anyone struggling with chronic illness or a new diagnosis.
‘Vigil,’ by George Saunders
Published in January, this novel describes the final night of K.J. Boone, a retired oil executive. Dying of cancer, Boone silently rationalizes his choices — many of which contributed to climate change — while Jill, a young angel, listens.
Kelly Corrigan, author of the memoir “Tell Me More” and host of the interview podcast “Kelly Corrigan Wonders,” said that Boone’s calculations about “why he could still in some version of his life story be considered a great man” reminded her that we all tell ourselves self-flattering stories to heal from rejections and to be respected.
It’s easy to get stuck in superiority if you think you have nothing in common with people whose behavior offends you, she said. But if you can avoid dismissing them as completely different, you’re reaching “a place of common humanity,” she said.
Image credits: Picador, Vintage, Picador Paper, Harper Perennial, Random House
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