Self-explanatory title. I am getting myself admitted voluntarily next week. I might be there for months. No laptop and no phone. Only support groups, therapy, fitness and sports, and some spare hours every day to nap or read.
I am allowed to bring as many books as I want.
I prefer fiction because I don’t want self-improvement/philosophy to interfere with the deep introspection I will have there. But I have no problem with thought-provoking fiction as you will see below.
Books I will be bringing with me (books I have been drawn to for a while and for some reason didn’t read yet):
* Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace
* Brothers Karamazov
* East of Eden
* Stoner, John Williams
* Master and Margarita, Bulgakov
I have room for 2-3 more I think.
All-time fiction favorites of mine:
* Flowers for Algernon, Daniel Keyes (this is my #1 ever)
* Ubik, Philip K. Dick (strong contender for top #2)
* Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
* Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Haruki Murakami
* Kafka on the Shore, Haruki Murakami
* Wild Sheep Chase/Dance Dance Dance, Haruki Murakami
* Sirens of Titan, Kurt Vonnegut
* Replay, Ken Grimwood
* Tales of the Unexpected, Roald Dahl
* A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again, David Foster Wallace
* The Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro
* 1984/Animal Farm, George Orwell (everything by Orwell, really)
* American Psycho, Bret Easton Ellis
* Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
* Five Little Pigs, Agatha Christie
* All Ursula K. Le Guin
I also appreciate massively good thought-provoking graphic novels/comics. Tintin, Calvin and Hobbes, Jimmy Corrigan, Blankets, Asterios Polyp, Pyongyang / Guy Delisle, The Killer, Bone, XIII…
But I think I am leaning more into hefty absorbing books (Infinite Jest being the greatest example of them all), because I will have the time and the attitude to ‘endure’ them. Or maybe life-affirming books? ‘Unbroken’ by Laura Hillenbrand, is it good? What about ‘Wild’ by Cheryl Strayed?
I know this is a lot of information in a row. I just need the help in a critical point of my life. A million thanks.
by Ok-Drawer2290
36 Comments
It’s also a good time to read some biographies or autobiographies of people you admire.
Good luck!
if you want success stories of addicts- A Piece of Cake by Cupcake Brown is good.
Ice Capades by Sean Avery is a good memoir.
Try Anathem by Niel Stephenson. It’s long and fun with a lot of interesting lore that isn’t exactly handed to you.
One of my favorites is A Canticle for Leibowitz, which also merits reading. It’s got a wild but somewhat believable world.
Both take place in and around cloisters, so you may get a bit of a sympathetic buzz.
Oh and House of Leaves, though it may be a little intense and a lot of work to track the goings on, given the circumstances.
Daytripper by Fábio Moon is a thought provoking graphic novel.
That’s awesome and courageous! It looks like you enjoy Japanese literature, so I’m going to plug The Tale of Genji here. It’s beautiful and 1400 pages. I prefer the Washburn translation.
Bring a lot of Neil Postman!
1. Amusing ourselves to Death
2. The end of education
3. Disappearance of childhood
4. Building a bridge to 1800th Century
5. Conscientious Objections
6. Teaching as a subversive activity
7. Technology
Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse
Gravity’s Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon
Best of luck, my friend!
Lonesome Dove – Larry McMurtry
Shōgun – James Clavell
Infinite Jest is an interesting book for bringing to rehab as it:
1. is set partly in a drug rehab
and
2. generally deals with addiction of all forms
…Having said that, it doesn’t really end positively. It’s sort of just a loop with a hole in the middle. The author also hung himself (while writing a book about the IRS).
Maybe you should bring something else…
If you like Murakami and Ishiguro, have you read The Unconsoled by Ishiguro? It’s surreal and beefy.
I think Infinite Jest should be enough…good luck on your journey friend…good on you for taking the necessary steps to get yourself better
American Gods or World War Z if you’ve never read them. Into Thin Air if you want something that just grips you—you might have some introspection but mostly it’s just a very intense story. Anything by Grady Hendrix if you want absurd horror to make you laugh.
Good luck and congrats on taking these steps! I’m 5 years sober and the first weeks and year are the hardest. Rooting for you right now.
Do you like fantasy?
Check out the Stormlight archive? Each one is a thousand pages and there are at least three books. They are so good.
Game of thrones. Too bad Geogie boy can’t finish the series.
Wheel of time.
The Southern Vampire Mysteries.
Dexter.
I wish you the best. Here are my suggestions:
Thomas Hardy The Return of the Native (or The Mayor of Casterbridge, or Far From the Madding Crowd)
Ann Patchett Bel Canto
Amor Towles A Gentleman in Moscow
Alan Paton Cry the Beloved Country
If you want something to break up the deep stuff you could take Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Unconsoled, Stella Gibbons’ Cold Comfort Farm, and/or Patrick DeWitt’s Undermajordomo Minor.
This truly looks like my favorites list. The five you chose are all terrific. I reread Infinite Jest every year as an antidepressant.
Here are some possible options that would fit in well…
Gravity’s Rainbow (brilliant/deep), Catch-22(hilarious, devastating, brilliant), Don Quixote (hilarious, inspiring), Tristam Shandy(very funny, but a bit dated), Pale Fire (straight up brilliant, mysterious), Blood Meridian (beautiful writing, but completely nihilistic), White Noise (brilliant, funny satire), and Quo Vadis (inspiring).
One mainstream novel that may fit is The Goldfinch. It Questions the meaning of life, purpose, human connections, but ends up feeling pretty nihilistic.
I truly wish you the best of luck. We’re pulling for you.
I really liked Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
David Sedaris “calypso” — that’s what I took when I went! Darker than his usual stuff, deeply funny and mean—it just worked for me in detox.
honestly my husband read one of the dan brown books the last time he had to check himself in for mental evaluations and he said it was the best thing about his time there so maybe?
Wild by Cheryl Strayed is really good. I haven’t read any of her other work yet but I’ve heard good things.
Since you liked Pride and Prejudice… I recommend her ‘Sense and Sensibility’ and ‘Mansfield Park’
If you’ve not read anything else by Agatha Christie I definitely recommend any of her other work… You can read the ones that have the newer movies out like ‘Murder on the Orient Express’, ‘Death on the Nile’, and ‘Hallowe’en Party’
‘Station Eleven’ by Emily St John Mandel
Have you read terry pratchett? I feel like the discworld series might be nice in this situation: thought provoking but funny, and seemingly never ending.
It’s not fiction, but one of my absolute favorite books is Look at My Striped Shirt! by the Phat Phree. The subtitle is Confessions of the People You Love to Hate, and each “chapter” is a hilarious description of a stereotypical insufferable person. Seriously one of the funniest books I’ve ever read!
The Forsyte Saga!
Stick with classics and ONLY classics.
Man you have good taste. TBK is absolutely elite. Try My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante
Stormlight archive. By Brandon Sanderson
If you liked Sirens of Titan, may I suggest one of my favorite Vonnegut books, Mother Night?
Also, one of my all-time favorites, Sometimes a Great Notion by Ken Kesey.
Good luck. I know I’m just a stranger online, but I’m proud of you for taking control of your life.
Good opportunity to read ‘Remembrance of things past’ by proust. Consistently rated the greatest novel ever written. Heavy but profound. His aim is to make you see the world differently and as he says such a task will be difficult and challenging. i read a page a day and think about what he has to say. The first 40 pages are the hardest as you need to get used to gramaricslly perfect sentences which are over a page long.
Before I read Don Quixote, I thought, “Everyone puts this on the list of greatest novels ever written, but how great could it possibly be?” Then I read it and realized why. Try it yourself. Heartbreak, joy, madness, sanity, laughter, tears.
*Unbroken* by Laura Hillenbrand is amazing. Just wild.
*The Hiding Place* by Corrie Ten Boom is a truly amazing story. She was a Christian, and there are Christian themes; but I really think it’s a worthwhile read even if that’s not your thing. What her family did was incredible.
*Neverwhere* by Neil Gaiman is one of my favourites – it sucks you write in. *The Graveyard Book* is fun, too.
*Sweep* by Jonathan Auxier is amazing.
I love *The Chronicles of Narnia* by C. S. Lewis.
*The Hobbit* and *The Lord of the Rings* by J. R. R. Tolkien are good – a great story that you have time to really get into.
*Born a Crime* by Trevor Noah covers some heavy topics, but it feels like a light read because of the humour he uses. It’s super fun and eye-opening.
I’m not super familiar with your have-read lists, but those are some ideas.
Enjoy whatever you pick up next, and I hope things go well for you! 🙂
it seems like you’d enjoy Philip K Dick’s “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” (the one Blade Runner’s based on) if you haven’t read it already. and you might like some Chuck Palahniuk if you liked American Psycho. my faves were Invisible Monsters and Choke, although Fight Club is definitely essential as well. It’s also worth checking out Murakami’s 1Q84 too- it’s as huge as Infinite Jest and I’d argue it’s even more interminable. wishing you the best in your recovery 🙏
I share a lot of your favorites. I don’t know what you’re going in for, but if I was going in to kick booze, I would want something less taxing, easier to get involved in. My bookmark in Infinite Jest is about 25 pages in, for 10 years now. I loved Replay so I recommend 4 books by Blake Crouch. ‘Recursion’ and the “Wayward Pines” trilogy. And also Stephen King’s ‘11/22/63.’ I love Blankets and C&H but haven’t found anything recently that compare to them. LeGuin’s “A Wizard of Earthsea” gives me a similar feeling to those, sans graphics. That’s a short read so it’s a small book. Worth it.
I thoroughly enjoy anything by Jon Krakauer. Dune will keep you busy for a while. For more modern sci-fi, I love Ted Chiang’s collection called Exhalation.
You might like **My Life as a White Trash Zombie**. It’s equal parts zombie murder mystery and belated coming of age story. Main character dies of a drug overdose but gets a second chance when she comes back as a zombie. I read it years after getting sober and it really mirrored my drive to not only get sober, but build up self esteem and get a good life. It’s not the deepest literature but it packs an emotional punch and has a happy ending.
Discworld is great too. Most people recommend starting with the Witches series (Equal Rites, Wyrd Sisters, Witches Abroad, and so on) or the city watch series (Guards! Guards!, Men at Arms, Feet of Clay, and so on). One of the main characters in the city watch series is an alcoholic and the first two books deal a bit with him getting sober. It doesn’t get deep in the paint about it emotionally, and it treats it a bit shallow at times.
If you want awesome and thought provoking graphic novels, Sandman is a great series. Feels epic and like nothing else I’ve read.
Getting sober is difficult, but it’s definitely worth it. I’m glad you have the wherewithal and resources to reach out for help. Good luck!
Unbroken and Wild are both excellent choices. Add in Educated by Tara Westover and you’ll be all set on life-affirming books.
Best of luck to you on your journey!
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Sound’s like the perfect time to read “Gravity’s Rainbow” by Thomas Pynchon. Then maybe “V” by the same. Knock out the books by Pynchon.
Neal Stephenson would be my other rec for long books. Too many to say just one. “Snow Crash” is a good starting book before getting into his longer ones and his series of longer books.
I have a longer comment coming but why do you say you only have room for a couple more? From my experience if you can’t bring all of the ones you want in from the getgo (which i don’t see why not) then you can have more brought/ sent in as long as they go through screening to make sure you don’t have contraband in them