Depression

Read this for the second time and realised I had judged it quite poorly the first. It's interesting, well-written, holistic in its approach, and very very important because it makes some key yet generally unacknowledged points about depression that can also apply to mental illnesses in general. Apart from putting the reader in his shoes (William Styron was very severely depressed for a period of his later life), he highlights that depression is difficult to cure because of the idiosyncratic nature of the disease, and because the brain is still largely a mystery to science. Also, mental illnesses are illnesses even though they are often treated as behavioural choices of patients unwilling to make the extra effort at life. Though gloomy at times, it ends on a very optimistic note. Highly recommended!