The Greatest Books of All Time on Mental Illness

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This list represents a comprehensive and trusted collection of the greatest books. Developed through a specialized algorithm, it brings together 759 'best of' book lists to form a definitive guide to the world's most acclaimed books. For those interested in how these books are chosen, additional details can be found on the rankings page.

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Rank Book Authors Year Country Language Actions
9 The Sound and the Fury William Faulkner 1929 American English
32 Mrs. Dalloway Virginia Woolf 1925 British English
85 The Good Soldier Ford Madox Ford 1915 British English
168 Tender Is the Night F. Scott Fitzgerald 1934 American English
237 The Corrections Jonathan Franzen 2001 American English
331 Housekeeping Marilynne Robinson 1980 American English
433 Play It As It Lays Joan Didion 1970 American English
619 The Sheltering Sky Paul Bowles 1949 American English
666 Humboldt's Gift Saul Bellow 1975 American English
748 Howl and Other Poems Allen Ginsberg 1956 American English
803 Sophie's Choice William Styron 1979 American English
901 Last Exit to Brooklyn Hubert Selby 1964 American English
949 Nada Carmen Laforet 1944 Spanish Spanish
968 Jesus' Son Denis Johnson 1992 American English
1000 A Thousand Acres Jane Smiley 1991 American English
1031 The Temple of the Golden Pavilion Yukio Mishima 1956 Japanese Japanese
1036 The Fortunes Of Richard Mahony Henry Handel Richardson 1917 Australian English
1089 Suttree Cormac McCarthy 1979 American English
1132 Lenz Georg Buchner 1836 German German
1137 Miss Lonelyhearts Nathanael West 1933 American English
1153 Beast In View Margaret Millar 1955 Canadian English
1279 Psycho Robert Bloch 1959 American English
1316 The Fountain Overflows Rebecca West 1956 British English
1334 Hangover Square Patrick Hamilton 1941 British English
1366 The Adversary Emmanuel Carrère 2000 French French
1610 The Hours Michael Cunningham 1998 American English
1625 The Three Stigmata Of Palmer Eldritch Philip K. Dick 1965 American English
1651 The Yellow Wallpaper Charlotte Perkins Gilman 1892 American English
1679 The Killer Inside Me Jim Thompson 1952 American English
1711 Woyzeck Georg Buchner 1879 German German
2004 A School For Fools Sasha Sokolov 1976 Russian Russian
2084 Fight Club Chuck Palahniuk 1996 American English
2293 The Divided Self R. D. Laing 1960 British English
2302 Ironweed William Kennedy 1983 American English
2356 The Butcher Boy Patrick McCabe 1992 Irish English
2393 The Glass Castle Jeannette Walls 2005 American English
2472 Fall On Your Knees Ann-Marie MacDonald 1996 Canadian English
2512 Howl, Kaddish And Other Poems Allen Ginsberg 1956 American English
2601 Darkness Visible William Styron 1990 American English
2902 What I Loved Siri Hustvedt 2003 American English
2930 Martian Time Slip Philip K. Dick 1964 American English
3058 Trust Hernan Díaz 2022 Argentinian English
3144 Dhalgren Samuel R. Delany 1975 American English
3166 Paris Trout Pete Dexter 1988 American English
3208 Briefing For A Descent Into Hell Doris May Lessing 1971 British English
3211 Betty Blue Philippe Djian 1985 French French
3324 Memoirs of My Nervous Illness Daniel Paul Schreber 1903 German German
3409 The Birds Tarjei Vesaas 1957 Norwegian Norwegian
3477 The Black Obelisk Erich Maria Remarque 1956 German German
3527 All My Puny Sorrows Miriam Toews 2014 Canadian English
3559 Faces In The Water Janet Frame 1961 New Zealander English
3591 Do Everything in the Dark Gary Indiana 2003 American English
3828 Cloudstreet Tim Winton 1991 Australian English
3859 Enduring Love Ian McEwan 1997 British English
3887 Lunar Park Bret Easton Ellis 2005 American English
4083 No Laughing Matter Angus Wilson 1967 British English
4139 The Liars' Club Mary Karr 1995 American English
4284 A Rose for Emily William Faulkner 1930 American English
4507 The Book about Blanche and Marie Per Olov Enquist 2004 Swedish Swedish
4827 The Largesse of the Sea Maiden Denis Johnson 2018 American English
4885 The Crimson Petal And The White Michel Faber 2002 British English
5115 Swamplandia! Karen Russell 2011 American English
5282 Strangers To Ourselves Rachel Aviv 2022 American English
5406 Melancholy Jon Fosse 1995 Norwegian Norwegian
5408 The Prince of Tides Pat Conroy 1986 American English
5510 Riders In The Chariot Patrick White 1961 Australian English
5521 The Royal Physician's Visit Per Olov Enquist 1999 Swedish Swedish
5529 Petrolejové Lampy Jaroslav Havlíček 1944 Czech Czech
5575 VALIS Philip K. Dick 1981 American English
5756 Come Closer Sara Gran 2003 American English
5760 The Deadly Percheron John Franklin Bardin 1946 American English
5889 Louis Lambert Honoré de Balzac 1832 French French
6141 The Time Ludmila Petrushevskaya 1992 Russian Russian
6272 Owls Do Cry Janet Frame 1957 New Zealand English
6339 Nothing Holds Back The Night Delphine de Vigan 2011 French French
6607 Nos4 A2 Joe Hill 2013 American English
6610 Hidden Valley Road Robert Kolker 2020 American English
6730 The Afterlife Donald Antrim 2006 American English
6763 The Collected Poems of Theodore Roethke Theodore Roethke 1966 American English
6846 King Solomon's Carpet Barbara Vine 1991 British English
6859 A Head Full Of Ghosts Paul Tremblay 2015 American English
6928 The Repairer Of Reputations Robert W. Chambers 1895 American English
7190 The Complete Plays Of Eugene O'neill Eugene O'Neill 1959 American English
7215 Man Against Himself Karl A. Menninger 1938 American English
7655 Poems Of Robert Lowell Robert Lowell 1946 American English
7811 The Marriage Plot Jeffrey Eugenides 2011 American English
7809 Bullet Park John Cheever 1969 American English
7891 Shutter Island Dennis Lehane 2003 American English
8048 The 10pm Question Kate De Goldi 2008 New Zealand English
8173 A Demon In My View Ruth Rendell 1976 British English
8201 4.48 Psychosis Sarah Kane 2000 British English
8538 Life Studies Robert Lowell 1967 American English
9188 Irritable Hearts Mac McClelland 2015 Unknown English
9233 Primal Fear William Diehl 1993 American English
9243 An Audience Of Chairs Joan Clark 2005 Canadian English
9248 White Is For Witching Helen Oyeyemi 2009 British English
9271 Angels Denis Johnson 1983 American English
9365 A Line Made By Walking Sara Baume 2017 Irish English
9601 Meteor In The Madhouse Leon Forrest 2001 American English
9956 Asylum Patrick McGrath 1996 British English
9984 I Know This Much Is True Wally Lamb 1998 American English
9998 Em And The Big Hoom Jerry Pinto 2012 Indian English
10100 A Fan's Notes Frederick Exley 1968 American English
10217 Great Granny Webster Caroline Blackwood 1977 English English
10735 The Fifth Child Doris May Lessing 1988 British English
10737 Imagine Me Gone Adam Haslett 2016 American English
10745 A Late Divorce A. B. Yehoshua 1982 Israeli Hebrew
10779 Burnt Sugar Avni Doshi 2020 Indian English
10955 The Bird's Nest Shirley Jackson 1954 American English
11053 Coin Locker Babies Ryū Murakami 1980 Japanese Japanese
11134 Is There No Place On Earth For Me? Susan Sheehan 1982 American English
11155 Lie Down In Darkness William Styron 1951 American English
11326 White Oleander Fitch, Janet 1999 American English
11351 The Girl In The Green Dress Jeni Haynes 2019 Unknown English
11357 The Illustrated Mum Jacqueline Wilson 1999 British English
11505 Collected Poems John Berryman 1989 American English
11794 The Bride Collector Ted Dekker 2010 American English
11899 The Book Of Ruth Jane Hamilton 1988 American English
11899 The Woman Who Was Not All There Paula Sharp 1988 American English
12258 The Loony Bin Trip Kate Millett 1990 American English