New Mental Health Picks from the Publishing World

A Mindfulness Guide for the Frazzled by Ruby Wax

Ruby Wax is a British comedian who suffers from depression and negative thinking. It was this thinking that forced her to get a Master’s degree in Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy from Oxford. Her training in comedy and theatre inform her writing style as this is the funniest book on mindfulness out there. She gives you a six-week mindfulness course as well as humorous snippets of her personal story. She also writes about the science of mindfulness. And, this is science writing that will tickle your funny bone. She’ll show you how mindfulness related to her life and how it can relate to your’s. She won Britain’s highest honor, an OBE, for her services to mental health. Her website is http://rubywax.net.
Lost Marbles Insights into My Life with Depression and Bipolar by Natasha Tracy

Natasha Tracy skillfully uses her personal experience with bipolar 2 and her gift for science writing to talk about stigma, types of bipolar, medication, how to talk to someone with bipolar. This is the type of book I wished I had when I first got out of the hospital. This is a fact-based book on the nuances of living with bipolar and depression.

She writes the well-known blog Bipolar Burple found at http://natashatracy.com.
Notes on a Banana A Memoir of Food, Love, and Manic Depression by David Leite

David Leite, the James Beard Award-Winning creator of the website Leite’s Culinaria, writes a tell-all memoir about coming to terms with his homosexuality and getting diagnosed with bipolar 2. Throughout the book, he uses humor and  his love of food and cooking as a motif.  Overall, this was an interesting read and very well-written as he studied memoir with writer Marion Roach Smith of the Memoir Project. A longer interview is forthcoming.

He can be found at leitesculinaria.com.