7 must-read memoir books like The Best Minds: A Story of Friendship, Madness, and the Tragedy of Good Intentions by Jonathan Rosen

Cover of The Best Minds: A Story of Friendship, Madness, and the Tragedy of Good Intentions by Jonathan Rosen

The Best Minds: A Story of Friendship, Madness, and the Tragedy of Good Intentions

By: Jonathan Rosen

4.07

Format: 576 pages, Hardcover

“Brave and nuanced…an act of tremendous compassion and a literary triumph.” — The New York Times …

"It's true I didn't love the job, but I did want the money. If I was too incompetent for ordinary work, I would have to do something extraordinary or face destruction."

-Jonathan Rosen, The Best Minds: A Story of Friendship, Madness, and the Tragedy of Good Intentions

"It's true I didn't love the job, but I did want the money. If I was too incompetent for ordinary work, I would have to do something extraordinary or face destruction."

-Jonathan Rosen, The Best Minds: A Story of Friendship, Madness, and the Tragedy of Good Intentions

"Money had replaced community mental healthcare the way medication had replaced state hospitals. Medication did not go looking for those who resisted taking it, and money could not administer itself. Neither came with counseling or support. The SSI checks Michael received, and the Medicaid requirements he was eligible for, did not create a caring community or even an indifferent one. Nevertheless, checks and pills were what remained of a grand promise, the ingredients of a mental healthcare system that had never been baked but were handed out like flour and yeast in separate packets to starving people."

-Jonathan Rosen, The Best Minds: A Story of Friendship, Madness, and the Tragedy of Good Intentions

"Money had replaced community mental healthcare the way medication had replaced state hospitals. Medication did not go looking for those who resisted taking it, and money could not administer itself. Neither came with counseling or support. The SSI checks Michael received, and the Medicaid requirements he was eligible for, did not create a caring community or even an indifferent one. Nevertheless, checks and pills were what remained of a grand promise, the ingredients of a mental healthcare system that had never been baked but were handed out like flour and yeast in separate packets to starving people."

-Jonathan Rosen, The Best Minds: A Story of Friendship, Madness, and the Tragedy of Good Intentions

If you liked the memoir plot in The Best Minds: A Story of Friendship, Madness, and the Tragedy of Good Intentions by Jonathan Rosen , here is a list of 7 books like this:

Cover of The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness by Elyn R. Saks

1. The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness

By: Elyn R. Saks

4.31

Format: 340 pages, Hardcover

Elyn Saks is a success by any measure: she's an endowed professor at the prestigious University of … read more

Similar categories in Elyn R. Saks's The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness book and Jonathan Rosen's The Best Minds: A Story of Friendship, Madness, and the Tragedy of Good Intentions

  • biography
  • memoir
  • psychology
  • mental health
  • mental illness
  • biography memoir
  • nonfiction
"in my experience, the words “now just calm down"

-Elyn R. Saks, The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness

"some truths that were too difficult and frightening to know."

-Elyn R. Saks, The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness

"The humanity we all share is more important than the mental illnesses we may not"

-Elyn R. Saks, The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness

"I needed to put two critical ideas together: that I could both be mentally ill and lead a rich and satisfying life."

-Elyn R. Saks, The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness

Cover of Grief Is for People by Sloane Crosley

2. Grief Is for People

By: Sloane Crosley

3.91

Format: 208 pages, Hardcover

Following the death of her closest friend, Sloane Crosley explores multiple kinds of loss in this d… read more

Similar categories in Sloane Crosley's Grief Is for People book and Jonathan Rosen's The Best Minds: A Story of Friendship, Madness, and the Tragedy of Good Intentions

  • biography
  • memoir
  • psychology
  • mental health
  • biography memoir
  • nonfiction
  • audiobook
"Grief is for people, not things."

-Sloane Crosley, Grief Is for People

"Suicide is a tax on human consciousness."

-Sloane Crosley, Grief Is for People

"How will he know you loved him," she asks, "unless you try to destroy yourself?"

-Sloane Crosley, Grief Is for People

"Pictures should be of what you see, not of what the world sees when it sees you."

-Sloane Crosley, Grief Is for People

Cover of James by Percival Everett

3. James

By: Percival Everett

4.54

Format: 303 pages, Hardcover

A brilliant, action-packed reimagining of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn , both harrowing and f… read more

Similar categories in Percival Everett's James book and Jonathan Rosen's The Best Minds: A Story of Friendship, Madness, and the Tragedy of Good Intentions

  • audiobook
Cover of North Woods by Daniel       Mason

4. North Woods

By: Daniel Mason

4.15

Format: 372 pages, Hardcover

A sweeping novel about a single house in the woods of New England, told through the lives of those … read more

Similar categories in Daniel Mason's North Woods book and Jonathan Rosen's The Best Minds: A Story of Friendship, Madness, and the Tragedy of Good Intentions

  • audiobook
Cover of The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James   McBride

5. The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store

By: James McBride

4.00

Format: 385 pages, Hardcover

In 1972, when workers in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, were digging the foundations for a new housing de… read more

Similar categories in James McBride's The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store book and Jonathan Rosen's The Best Minds: A Story of Friendship, Madness, and the Tragedy of Good Intentions

  • audiobook
Cover of Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange

6. Wandering Stars

By: Tommy Orange

3.89

Format: 315 pages, Hardcover

The eagerly awaited follow-up to Pulitzer Prize-finalist Tommy Orange’s breakout best seller There … read more

Similar categories in Tommy Orange's Wandering Stars book and Jonathan Rosen's The Best Minds: A Story of Friendship, Madness, and the Tragedy of Good Intentions

  • audiobook
"And in the year 1924 Indian citizenship will have been granted, even though they will mean to dissolve tribes by giving citizenship, dissolve being another word for disappearance, a kind of chemical …"

-Tommy Orange, Wandering Stars

Cover of Eastbound by Maylis de Kerangal

7. Eastbound

By: Maylis de Kerangal

3.97

Format: 140 pages, Paperback

From Wellcome Prize winner Maylis de Kerangal comes a fast-paced story of two fugitives set on the … read more

Similar categories in Maylis de Kerangal's Eastbound book and Jonathan Rosen's The Best Minds: A Story of Friendship, Madness, and the Tragedy of Good Intentions

  • audiobook
Cover of Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

8. Chain-Gang All-Stars

By: Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

4.14

Format: 367 pages, Hardcover

Two top women gladiators fight for their freedom within a depraved private prison system not so far… read more

Similar categories in Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah's Chain-Gang All-Stars book and Jonathan Rosen's The Best Minds: A Story of Friendship, Madness, and the Tragedy of Good Intentions

  • audiobook
"They were all humans, and yet they had completely different ideas about what humanity meant."

-Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Chain-Gang All-Stars

"My brother-in-law is an alien. I have a bunch of alien friends. I can't be racist," Randy Mac continued."

-Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Chain-Gang All-Stars

"An absurd thing for the murderous state to plead for, but, as always, the massive violence of the state was “justice,"

-Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Chain-Gang All-Stars

"...despite how hard it was, she wasn't afraid with love. She knew how to wield it, how to grow it, and how to receive it."

-Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Chain-Gang All-Stars

Cover of The Best Minds: A Story of Friendship, Madness, and the Tragedy of Good Intentions by Jonathan Rosen

9. The Best Minds: A Story of Friendship, Madness, and the Tragedy of Good Intentions

By: Jonathan Rosen

4.07

Format: 576 pages, Hardcover

“Brave and nuanced…an act of tremendous compassion and a literary triumph.” — The New York Times … read more

Similar categories in Jonathan Rosen's The Best Minds: A Story of Friendship, Madness, and the Tragedy of Good Intentions book and Jonathan Rosen's The Best Minds: A Story of Friendship, Madness, and the Tragedy of Good Intentions

  • biography
  • memoir
  • true crime
  • psychology
  • mental health
  • mental illness
  • biography memoir
  • nonfiction
  • crime
  • audiobook
"It's true I didn't love the job, but I did want the money. If I was too incompetent for ordinary work, I would have to do something extraordinary or face destruction."

-Jonathan Rosen, The Best Minds: A Story of Friendship, Madness, and the Tragedy of Good Intentions

"Money had replaced community mental healthcare the way medication had replaced state hospitals. Medication did not go looking for those who resisted taking it, and money could not administer itself. …"

-Jonathan Rosen, The Best Minds: A Story of Friendship, Madness, and the Tragedy of Good Intentions

Cover of The Bee Sting by Paul Murray

10. The Bee Sting

By: Paul Murray

3.96

Format: 656 pages, Hardcover

From the author of Skippy Dies comes Paul Murray's The Bee Sting, an irresistibly funny, wise, and … read more

Similar categories in Paul Murray's The Bee Sting book and Jonathan Rosen's The Best Minds: A Story of Friendship, Madness, and the Tragedy of Good Intentions

  • audiobook
"It is for love. You are doing this for love."

-Paul Murray, The Bee Sting

"We all have problems. But often instead of accepting the truth about ourselves, we cover it up. We try to make ourselves the way we think we’re expected to be."

-Paul Murray, The Bee Sting

"Maybe every era has an atrocity woven into its fabric. Maybe every society is complicit in terrible things and only afterwards gets around to pretending they didn’t know. When the kids ask, tell them…"

-Paul Murray, The Bee Sting

"Maybe that’s how it will go – instead of one definitive cataclysm, a series of ‘anomalies’, each time lasting longer, with the stretches of what you call normal life becoming further and further apar…"

-Paul Murray, The Bee Sting

Cover of Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar

11. Martyr!

By: Kaveh Akbar

4.24

Format: 352 pages, Hardcover

Kaveh Akbar’s Martyr! is a paean to how we spend our lives seeking meaning—in faith, art, ourselves… read more

Similar categories in Kaveh Akbar's Martyr! book and Jonathan Rosen's The Best Minds: A Story of Friendship, Madness, and the Tragedy of Good Intentions

  • audiobook
Cover of Table for Two by Amor Towles

12. Table for Two

By: Amor Towles

4.26

Format: 464 pages, Hardcover

From the bestselling author of The Lincoln Highway, A Gentleman in Moscow, and Rules of Civility, a… read more

Similar categories in Amor Towles's Table for Two book and Jonathan Rosen's The Best Minds: A Story of Friendship, Madness, and the Tragedy of Good Intentions

  • audiobook
"And though she couldn’t remember the exact reference and whether it was from mythology or the Bible, she knew instinctively as they approached the pier’s limit she mustn’t look back."

-Amor Towles, Table for Two

"It is a funny aspect of life, thought Charlie, how a group of grown people can convince themselves to do something that none of them really want to do. They start by talking an idea into existence. O…"

-Amor Towles, Table for Two

Cover of The Fraud by Zadie Smith

13. The Fraud

By: Zadie Smith

3.30

Format: 464 pages, Hardcover

The extraordinary first historical novel from bestselling author of White Teeth Zadie Smith It i… read more

Similar categories in Zadie Smith's The Fraud book and Jonathan Rosen's The Best Minds: A Story of Friendship, Madness, and the Tragedy of Good Intentions

  • audiobook
"Eliza had long understood her cousin to be beyond the reach of editorial intervention."

-Zadie Smith, The Fraud

"What possesses people? Unhappiness, always. Happiness is otherwise occupied. It has an object on which to focus. It has daisies, it has snowdrifts. Unhappiness opens up the void, which then requires …"

-Zadie Smith, The Fraud

"I know this country well. Well enough to understand that justice takes time, and that the freedoms of a minority are rarely self-evident to the majority. What is perfectly selfevident to God is – unf…"

-Zadie Smith, The Fraud

"God preserve me from novel-writing, thought Mrs Touchet. God preserve me from that tragic indulgence, that useless vanity, that blindness! In a cold dormitory, two hundred miles away, three heartbrok…"

-Zadie Smith, The Fraud

Cover of Some People Need Killing: A Memoir of Murder in My Country by Patricia Evangelista

14. Some People Need Killing: A Memoir of Murder in My Country

By: Patricia Evangelista

4.18

Format: 428 pages, Hardcover

A fearless, powerfully written on-the-ground account of a nation careening into violent autocracy—t… read more

Similar categories in Patricia Evangelista's Some People Need Killing: A Memoir of Murder in My Country book and Jonathan Rosen's The Best Minds: A Story of Friendship, Madness, and the Tragedy of Good Intentions

  • biography
  • memoir
  • true crime
  • nonfiction
  • crime
  • audiobook
Cover of Sociopath: A Memoir by Patric Gagne

15. Sociopath: A Memoir

By: Patric Gagne

3.84

Format: 368 pages, Hardcover

A fascinating, revelatory memoir revealing the author’s struggle to come to terms with her own soci… read more

Similar categories in Patric Gagne's Sociopath: A Memoir book and Jonathan Rosen's The Best Minds: A Story of Friendship, Madness, and the Tragedy of Good Intentions

  • biography
  • memoir
  • psychology
  • mental health
  • mental illness
  • biography memoir
  • nonfiction
  • audiobook
"In a universe where everything seemed to be associated with everything else, jazz was in a world all its own. The untethered notes didn't propel me backward in time or force me into imaginations of t…"

-Patric Gagne, Sociopath: A Memoir

"Regardless of whether they realized it, my parents, my friends, my teachers, my lovers—everyone, on some level—was uncomfortable with my limited emotion. Because it meant something sinister. Because,…"

-Patric Gagne, Sociopath: A Memoir

"I loved people. I truly did. But the way I loved was different than most. And, if I was being honest, not all that compatible. I didn’t need to get love in order to give love. I never had. I preferre…"

-Patric Gagne, Sociopath: A Memoir

"The more I paid attention, the more I noticed just how often 'apathy,' 'lack of feeling,' and the word 'sociopath' were associated with evil. Everywhere. From celebrated books like East of Eden and T…"

-Patric Gagne, Sociopath: A Memoir

Cover of Fire Weather: A True Story from a Hotter World by John Vaillant

16. Fire Weather: A True Story from a Hotter World

By: John Vaillant

4.35

Format: 432 pages, Hardcover

A stunning account of a colossal wildfire that collided with a city and a panoramic exploration of … read more

Similar categories in John Vaillant's Fire Weather: A True Story from a Hotter World book and Jonathan Rosen's The Best Minds: A Story of Friendship, Madness, and the Tragedy of Good Intentions

  • nonfiction
  • audiobook
Cover of How to Say Babylon by Safiya Sinclair

17. How to Say Babylon

By: Safiya Sinclair

4.47

Format: 352 pages, Hardcover

With echoes of Educated and Born a Crime, How to Say Babylon is the stunning story of the author’s … read more

Similar categories in Safiya Sinclair's How to Say Babylon book and Jonathan Rosen's The Best Minds: A Story of Friendship, Madness, and the Tragedy of Good Intentions

  • biography
  • memoir
  • biography memoir
  • nonfiction
  • audiobook
"As I grew older, I knew I would never be his perfect Rasta daughter. I was too headstrong, too curious. Too much of myself, and not enough of him."

-Safiya Sinclair, How to Say Babylon

Cover of Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom by Ilyon Woo

18. Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom

By: Ilyon Woo

3.99

Format: 416 pages, Hardcover

New York Times Bestseller | New York Times 10 Best Books of 2023 The remarkable true story of El… read more

Similar categories in Ilyon Woo's Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom book and Jonathan Rosen's The Best Minds: A Story of Friendship, Madness, and the Tragedy of Good Intentions

  • biography memoir
  • biography
  • nonfiction
  • audiobook
Cover of The Friday Afternoon Club: A Family Memoir by Griffin Dunne

19. The Friday Afternoon Club: A Family Memoir

By: Griffin Dunne

4.19

Format: 400 pages, Hardcover

At nine, Sean Connery saved him from drowning. At thirteen, desperate to hook up with Janis Joplin,… read more

Similar categories in Griffin Dunne's The Friday Afternoon Club: A Family Memoir book and Jonathan Rosen's The Best Minds: A Story of Friendship, Madness, and the Tragedy of Good Intentions

  • biography
  • memoir
  • true crime
  • biography memoir
  • nonfiction
  • audiobook
"At the moment when Mrs. Griffin had been notified of her husband’s death, she was in bed with her lover at the Hotel del Coronado in California, and took the news that she was a widow rather well. Sh…"

-Griffin Dunne, The Friday Afternoon Club: A Family Memoir

Cover of Bottoms Up and the Devil Laughs: A Journey Through the Deep State by Kerry Howley

20. Bottoms Up and the Devil Laughs: A Journey Through the Deep State

By: Kerry Howley

3.81

Format: 233 pages, Hardcover

A wild, humane, and hilarious meditation on post-privacy America--from the acclaimed author of Thro… read more

Similar categories in Kerry Howley's Bottoms Up and the Devil Laughs: A Journey Through the Deep State book and Jonathan Rosen's The Best Minds: A Story of Friendship, Madness, and the Tragedy of Good Intentions

  • crime
  • nonfiction
  • true crime
  • audiobook
"Leaks are the way Washington DC communicates with itself. The fortress allows itself to be breached. The ship of state the same goes is the only ship that leaks from the top"

-Kerry Howley, Bottoms Up and the Devil Laughs: A Journey Through the Deep State

"We tend to think of privacy as the freedom to keep intentional secrets separate from public knowledge but privacy has been the freedom to live as if most of what passes for experience will not endure."

-Kerry Howley, Bottoms Up and the Devil Laughs: A Journey Through the Deep State

"Surveillance capitalism doesn't manage the system of jails. It will not kidnap you from your country of origin strap you down and pour water down your throat until you break your ribs trying to free …"

-Kerry Howley, Bottoms Up and the Devil Laughs: A Journey Through the Deep State

Cover of Long Island Compromise by Taffy Brodesser-Akner

21. Long Island Compromise

By: Taffy Brodesser-Akner

3.88

Format: 464 pages, Hardcover

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • An exhilarating novel about one American family, the dark moment that shatter… read more

Similar categories in Taffy Brodesser-Akner's Long Island Compromise book and Jonathan Rosen's The Best Minds: A Story of Friendship, Madness, and the Tragedy of Good Intentions

  • audiobook

20 Top audiobook books like The Best Minds: A Story of Friendship, Madness, and the Tragedy of Good Intentions by Jonathan Rosen

Transform Your Habits

Grief Is for People

Sloane Crosley

3.91

Transform Your Habits

James

Percival Everett

4.54

Transform Your Habits

North Woods

Daniel Mason

4.15

Transform Your Habits

The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store

James McBride

4.00

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11 best-selling adult books like Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom by Ilyon Woo

Transform Your Habits

The Women

Kristin Hannah

4.64

Transform Your Habits

The Frozen River

Ariel Lawhon

4.43

Transform Your Habits

Let Us Descend

Jesmyn Ward

3.70

Transform Your Habits

The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War

Erik Larson

4.24

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