Announcing the Tag for September

[Anita]

Wow, this was a horse race with two contenders neck and neck, but in the end the tag for September will be:

psychological

Interestingly, the voting for this month was also down considerably. Maybe people are finally taking a vacation covid or no covid?

Please share your reading plans and recommendations below.

Remember, for the regular monthly reads, the book can be shelved as psychological on Goodreads, or be a book that is not yet shelved that way but you feel should be.

One way to find books to read for this tag is to please visit:

https://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/...

We encourage people to link to additional lists below if they find them.

Happy reading!

[Amy]

I guess I’ll go first! I already had a book picked out, and might read more than one. My 2010 book for the bingo challenge happens to be Winter Garden by Kristen Hannah, so that will be my first read. Likely not the only.

Nancy J, who always saves the day, I’m very happy for you.

[Anita]

I hope to read at least two of the following: Love and Other Thought Experiments, Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family, and/or Normal People.

I think my top recommendations would be either The Bell Jar or White Oleander both of which totally fit the bill!

[Theresa]

I plan to get rid of a few psychological thrillers lurking in my TBR.

[NancyJ]

WooHoo! I'm thrilled. Thank you! I'm going to try to cover several types of psychology - with a focus on health and normal processes, not insanity. Neuro/cognitive, social psychology (including relationships), organizational, performance/motivation, memory, depression, stress/resilience/adapting to change, change management. Plus psychological aspects of politics.

I plan to read at least half of these. Some have been on my tbr for a very long time.

Normal People
Kitchen
Persuasion
A Tale for the Time Being
Targeted: My Inside Story of Cambridge Analytica and How Trump and Facebook Broke Democracy
The Shipping News
Messenger of Truth - mystery
Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging
The XX Brain
The Unpersuadables: Adventures with the Enemies of Science
The Upward Spiral: Using Neuroscience to Reverse the Course of Depression, One Small Change at a Time
The Upside of Stress: Why Stress Is Good for You, and How to Get Good at It
600 Days of Edward
Secret Garden
Mrs Dalloway
Lab Girl
Being Mortal

Anita, thanks for the reminder about Love and Other Thought Experiments. I love your list, and I second your recommendations.

ADDED - Apeirogon - booker list. I had to return it before I got very far, but I read enough to know it has some psychological themes.

[Darci]

Oof, this is the only tag I really didn't have anything for. I might be ambitious and see if I can get through the whole The Complete Tales and Poems in a month. Otherwise, I might just skip the tag this month.

[LibraryCin]

I would have been happy with any of them, but I was - a little bit - hoping for diverse. I had two that I really wanted to get to for diverse!

Oh, well. I have plenty to choose from here.

[NancyJ]

For those interested in Diversity, these books are also tagged psychological:
Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption or the YA version
How to Be an Antiracist
The Rosie Project
If Beale Street Could Talk
The Hate You Give
600 Hours of Edward
Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?

[NancyJ]

Recommendations:

Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine
Educated
The Rosie Project
A Little Princess circa 1900 Children's book
The Silver Linings Playbook
The Kite Runner
The Light Between Oceans
What Alice Forgot - Liane Moriarty
Still Alice - depressing but good
The Housekeeper and the Professor

Mystery series with psychological detectives or themes (Gentler than many of the twisted thrillers on the list)
Maisie Dobbs - Amy might like
Little Black Lies - Amy -not for you
Still Life

Thrillers - Dark Matter, Recursion, Silent Patient

[Cora]

The books with this tag on my TBR are all very heavy reads. I am definitely not in the mood for a heavy book. I will have to keep looking at the recommendations and see if anything appeals to me.

[Jenny]

Be prepared for another long list from me lol! No idea what I'll read from it yet! And no recommendations from me either.

The woman in the window
The silent patient
You
Lolita
The strange case of dr Jekyll and mr hyde
Life of pi
We were liars
The secret history
The curious incident of the dog in the night-time
The haunting of hill house
The lovely bones
And then there were none
The surgeon
Quiet
In a dark, dark wood
The woman in cabin 10
Fractured
The turn of the screw
Eleanor Oliphant is completely fine
The talented mr ripley
Veronika decides to die
The turn of the key
Deja dead
Mrs Dalloway
Notes from underground
My lovely wife
Good me, bad me
Broken harbor
Lullaby
The girls
The scarlet letter
Ulysses
Our kind of cruelty
The book thief
Their eyes were watching god
My sister, the serial killer
Outliers
The house of mirth
The complete stories and poems
Normal people
The 7 ½ deaths of evelyn Hardcastle
Everything I never told you
Do androids dream of electric sheep
Blue Monday
The sense of an ending
The wife
A portrait of the artist as a young man
I’ll be gone in the dark
One of us is lying
Elizabeth is missing
Her fearful symmetry
Dubliners
The ocean at the end of the lane
The count of monte cristo
Faithful place
The devil in the white city
We are all completely besides ourselves
The 120 days of Sodom
Undone
The old man and the sea
Middlesex
The thirteenth tale
The gargoyle
Talking to strangers
The whisper man
Never have I ever
Educated
Madame bovary
The great alone
The kept woman
The innocent
Inferno
The glass castle
Blood orange
The hunting party
Scythe
The crow girl
The paying guests
Oryx and crake
Predictably irrational
Infinite jest
The wire in the blood
Rules of prey
Musicophilia
The book of lost things
A ladder to the sky
A killer’s mind
The stranger in the woods
The devotion of suspect x
A tale for the time being
Beneath the bleeding
Moby-dick
The gift of fear

[Olivermagnus]

I was hoping this would win. I have so many to choose from I feel almost overwhelmed.

[Booknblues]

Darci wrote: "Oof, this is the only tag I really didn't have anything for. I might be ambitious and see if I can get through the whole The Complete Tales and Poems in a month. Otherwise, I might ju..."

Yes, me, too! I didn't want to rain on everyone's parade who love this tag and I know I will find something to read.

[Joanne]

Pretty sure I will be reading the second Jack Reacher Tripwire - going into the vacation bag right now

Their Eyes Were Watching God is on the list, and I may get to that too

[Joy D]

Recommendations:

Fiction:
Regeneration by Pat Barker
The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry
Cat's Eye by Margaret Atwood

Non-Fiction:
Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl
Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior by Ori Brafman

[NancyJ]

Joanne wrote: "Pretty sure I will be reading the second Jack Reacher Tripwire - going into the vacation bag right now

Their Eyes Were Watching God is on the list, and I may get to that..."

I recommend the audio for this book, narrated by Ruby Dee. There is a section in the beginning that is heavy in dialect, which I found hard to read. The rest has beautiful prose and a lot of symbolism. This book opened me up. It's hard to explain.

[NancyJ]

Cora wrote: "The books with this tag on my TBR are all very heavy reads. I am definitely not in the mood for a heavy book. I will have to keep looking at the recommendations and see if anything appeals to me."

These sound like they wouldn't be too heavy. I recall positive reviews from this group.
Kitchen is short and it looks relatively light.
Lab Girl

For lighter reading, I would recommend

A Little Princess
The Rosie Project
What Alice Forgot
Harry Potter books - some fit
Carrie Fisher has several relatively short and funny memoir type books (if you like her).

Mysteries that are on the cozy side:
Maisie Dobbs
Still Life

For Non-fiction
The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit - surprisingly entertaining
The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom - a short book that often leads to a personal epiphany of one sort or another.

Does anyone consider Jane Austen light? I noticed Pride and Prejudice, and Persuasion on the list. (Sense and Sensibility seems heavier to me.)

[NancyJ]

Amy wrote: "I guess I’ll go first! I already had a book picked out, and might read more than one. My 2010 book for the bingo challenge happens to be Winter Garden by Kristen Hannah, so that will be my first re..."

Thanks Amy. I hope you find some books you love too.

[forsanolim]

I own both The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales and Norwegian Wood and will probably read one of them.

[Rose]

I wanted to read Crime and Punishment this year - and now I have a reason too.

[NancyJ]

forsanolim wrote: "I own both The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales and Norwegian Wood and will probably read one of them."

Good choices. Murakami intimidates me, but that's the one I would pick too.

[NancyJ]

Rose wrote: "I wanted to read Crime and Punishment this year - and now I have a reason too."

I hope you love it.

[Book Concierge]

There are so many good ones for this ...

Off the top of my head, I'd recommend:
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
The Ax by Donald E. Westlake

Have no idea what I'll be reading, but I'll find something ...

[Robin P]

A few more - actually just about every novel deals with psychology!

The Perks of Being a Wallflower
The Silver Linings Playbook
The Authenticity Project
Be Frank With Me

Susan Howatch writes many books with people who are unreliable narrators. They are telling the story and suddenly you either get someone else's point of view or something happens that forces the narrator to admit he has been lying/omitting/distorting. There is a whole series about people in the hierarchy of the Anglican church and there is a religious side to dealing with the issues but really at heart they are psychological. The first book is Ultimate Prizes.

Then there are all the thrillers and mysteries with psychopaths, which I generally avoid.

**Edit - I just found in my TBR - Therapy by David Lodge. He writes very funny satires on academic life and modern life in general, so that will be a fun alternative. That reminded me of Lying on the Couch, a book with some humor about the lives of psychiatrists. It turns out many people are doing some lying, in the sense of telling lies.

[LibraryCin]

I believe most of what's on my tbr is of the thriller persuasion, so I will likely be reading another of those.

[rose - 忻怡 -]

I haven't read this type of genre before so any recommendations?

[Holly R W]

@Rose, One of the nice things about this group is that the tags we read can be open to fit any genre. What kind of books do you enjoy reading?

[rose - 忻怡 -]

Well I enjoy fantasy mostly and also some YA. I read some romance as well but I'm not that into it.

[Holly R W]

@Rose, the book you choose for the monthly tag is open to your own interpretation. Are there books on your TBR that might be thought of as having a psychological bent?

In looking through the books I've read, I can recommend two that fit your genres:

The Hate U Give

Ginny Moon

We have other readers here who are more versed in fantasy and YA than I am. Joanne comes to mind. I hope she and others will see this and give you some more recommendations.

[rose - 忻怡 -]

Thanks so much!!! I'll definitely check those out

[Holly R W]

Just thought of another one that might hit all the right notes for you. The Language of Flowers I remember loving it!

[NancyJ]

Holly R W wrote: "Just thought of another one that might hit all the right notes for you. The Language of Flowers I remember loving it!"

Oh, I loved that book. It's wonderful. There is a companion book about the flowers too.

[rose - 忻怡 -]

It sounds awesome! I've downloaded the book now and I can't wait to start reading it!!

[Nicole R]

Anita wrote: "I hope to read at least two of the following: Love and Other Thought Experiments, Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family, and/or Normal Peop..."

Do I want to read [book:Love and Other Thought Experiments? I am not sure but I am going to look into it.

Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family is definitely a possibility.

Or, I could just reread Normal People! lol

[Nicole R]

I am temporarily living by the beach and am going to the bookstore today to pick up some paperbacks that will weather the sand! I should have no problem finding something that will be a great beach read!

[NancyJ]

Nicole R wrote: "Anita wrote: "I hope to read at least two of the following: Love :pand Other Thought Experiments, Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family, and/or [bo..."

Love and Other Thought Experiments is hard to find. My library doesn't have it, and it doesn't come in kindle. Amazon has a paperback and the price of the hardcover is $50!

[Jgrace]

Rose {Don't tell me the moon is shining, show me the glint of light on broken glass} wrote: "I haven't read this type of genre before so any recommendations?"

Rose, there's a lot about this tag that is open to interpretation. Since you like fantasy, I'd suggest Guy Gavriel Kay. His books are very character driven. It's not a stretch to say they are deeply psychological (and political) although there's no psychologist in the pages.

[NancyJ]

Rose {Don't tell me the moon is shining, show me the glint of light on broken glass} wrote: "It sounds awesome! I've downloaded the book now and I can't wait to start reading it!!"

Try to wait until September 1 if you can!

I'm a sucker for books about orphans, adoptions, foster care, etc. I really loved the characters in this book, warts and all.

[Charlotte]

I have no clue what I'll read... I'm in a bit of a reading funk.

I will recommend The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales, I listened to the audio version and loved it.

I have been wanting to read Verity for a popsugar prompt, so I may read that.

[Nicole R]

Charlotte, I was looking at Verity as well....

[Robin P]

Some sci-fi is very psychological as well, telepathy, mind control, etc.

[Jgrace]

I don't care for Thrillers, but I am thinking about fiction that feature psychologists as characters. Early 'talk therapy' , and the misuse of lunatic asylums interests me.

These are books that I gave 4 or 5 stars :
The Swan Thieves
Regeneration
Indian Horse -character is an alcoholic in treatment
Alias Grace
The Alienist
The Secret Scripture
Dust and Shadow: An Account of the Ripper Killings by Dr. John H. Watson - Holmes consults with an early 'talk therapist' for help with profiling the Ripper
The Little Book - time travel with Freud as a character,

[Jgrace]

I own the The Angel of Darkness, the sequel to The Alienist. It's been collecting dust for a very long time so I might get to that. If I'm in the mood for something very dark.

I never finished Pat Barker's Regeneration trilogy. The Eye in the Door and The Ghost Road ; WWI, influenza pandemic ..... yeh, very dark.

I'm going to have to look for something lighter.

[Charlotte]

Nicole R wrote: "Charlotte, I was looking at Verity as well...."

I like Colleen Hoover and she seems to grab my attention like Nora Roberts does, so I figure maybe she can break me out of my funk.

For the first time ever, I'm struggling with Nora!!

[NancyJ]

Rose {Don't tell me the moon is shining, show me the glint of light on broken glass} wrote: "Well I enjoy fantasy mostly and also some YA. I read some romance as well but I'm not that into it."

For Rose - Fantasy or YA with Psychological tags
I really liked these:
Practical Magic
The Rosie Project
Leaving Time - I loved the Elephants in this one)
The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet]
The Night Circus
Looking for Alaska
Illuminae
The Language of Flowers

These look like good options:
Uglies
Shatter Me
Unravel Me
Everything, Everything
It's Kind of a Funny Story

Popular series/books with the Psych tag:
Harry Potter
Hunger Games series
Divergent series
The Giver
Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar People
The Girl with all the gifts
The Host
Maze Runner
The Magicians

Emotional but worth it
The Book Thief
The Kite Runner
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time
Me Before You

[Nicole R]

Charlotte wrote: "For the first time ever, I'm struggling with Nora!!"

Which Nora are you reading?

[Nicole R]

Okay, I went to the bookstore and this is what I picked up for this month:

Recursion by Blake Crouch (the didn't have Dark Matter in stock)
Verity by Colleen Hoover
How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence by Michael Pollan

[Charlotte]

Nicole R wrote: "Which Nora are you reading?"

The Cousins O'Dwyer Trilogy

[Amy]

I liked Verity - definitely and interesting and engaging read! I read it in four hours on a plane on New Year’s Day. It was my first book of this year.

[Amy]

And I meant to say, Look at Nancy (and Jenny and others) just FLYING!