Skip to Main Content Accessibility Help

12 Canadian books that explore mental illness

Here are a dozen books that explore what it's like to live with mental illness.

CBC Books · CBC · Posted: May 11, 2017 4:22 PM EDT | Last Updated: July 7, 2017

May 1-7, 2017 was Mental Health Week. Here are a dozen books that explore what it's like to live with mental illness.

Clara Hughes was the Canada Reads 2016 champion, defending Lawrence Hill's The Illegal. (Simon & Schuster/Dundurn/Simon & Schuster)

How Can I Help? by David Goldbloom and Pier Bryden
Invisible North by Alexandra Shimo
Open Heart, Open Mind by Clara Hughes

13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl was shortlisted for the 2016 Scotiabank Giller Prize. (Penguin Canada/Random House Canada/University of Regina Press)

13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl by Mona Awad
White Walls by Judy Batalion
Firewater by Harold R. Johnson

The Ever After of Ashwin Rao by Padma Viswanathan was shortlisted for the 2014 Scotiabank Giller Prize. (Vintage Canada/Doubleday Canada/McClelland & Stewart)

The Ever After of Ashwin Rao by Padma Viswanathan
School of Velocity by Eric Beck Rubin
Medicine Walk by Richard Wagamese

The Mercy Journals was shortlisted for the Philip K. Dick Award for Science Fiction. (Random House Canada/Cormorant Books/Arsenal Pulp Press)

Waiting for First Light by Roméo Dallaire, with Jessica Dee Humphreys
A Secret Music by Susan Doherty Hannaford
The Mercy Journals by Claudia Casper

now