10 Books For Depressed People

you forgot The Bell Jar (or any of Plath's poetry)

Honestly love you for this list. The ones which I have read, I hold dear.
Thanks, BSG

Is the title/theme a joke? These sound like books to MAKE you depressed, not books an actual depressed person should read. Not cool.

Thanks, I just added like 4 books to my reading list.

BTW I fucking hate when you guys put each item on a different page. Pet peeve.

where's push by sapphire? that influenced the movie Precious

“Olive Kitteridge” by Elizabeth Strout is a great one, too, although I don't think you necessarily have to be a “depressed person” to enjoy reading “depressing” books. Some of us just prefer realism to sunshine and rainbows coming out of a new couple's asses and then they fall in love and have a baby and the whole town loves them and bakes them cookies.

this list is eerily similar to your last literature list

I'm 100 pages into Freedom and it's really pretty shitty. Depressing but with no real purpose for that.

I haven't been depressed in a while but I think it's about time.

Oh and Octet is AMAZING.

The Sun Also Rises has been glaring at me from the book shelf for months, after seeing it on this list I'm going to finally start it. Also, Catcher in the Rye totally was my favorite book as a depressed 15 year old. As was Less Than Zero, but that's a little more strange

no Bukowski?

So like depressed people are allergic to books written over 30 years ago except Hemingway, or what?

7, definitely. And if you're too depressed to actually read the book I recommend the movie.

11. The Road by Cormac McCarthy.

Big fan of Less Than Zero & Revolutionary Road. And I second (or third or whatever haha) the already mentioned need to include The Bell Jar, I don't think anything captures what it's like to go through depression as well as that books does (speaking from experience)

The whole concept of depressing art or art for depressed people doesn't make sense to me. I have read most of these books and really liked them but I wasn't depressed and they didn't make me feel depressed. I never really feel depressed as a result of experiencing art even if it's “sad” art.

It's like when people say listening to Elliott Smith is too depressing. Regardless of what the song is about it doesn't make me personally depressed to hear it. Like, I can roll down the windows on a summer day and crank up the volume on Either/Or and jam out, no problem.

As someone who's been suicidally depressed for more years than not in my life, I've found these books depressing as shit:

Bowles' The Sheltering Sky
Wharton's Ethan Frome
Seth's An Equal Music

this list made me depressed because i realized that i was too lazy to click through ten pages to get a top ten list.

Reading A Clockwork Orange at 13 years old is depressing…. lol.

My suggestions for your bummer: 
Good Old Neon from Olblivion by DFW. The Tree of Life by Terrence Malick. The Song “There is a Place” by the Silver Jews.These have themes of gratitude and forgiveness and letting go. I SAW A DARK SHADOW ON THIS LAND. I COULD NOT LOVE THE WORLD ENTIRE. THERE GREW A DESERT IN MY MIND. I TOOK A HAMMER TO IT ALL. :)

WHY DO I READ DEPRESSING BOOKS? WHY?FUCK YOU THAT'S WHY!

Also, The Perks of Being A Wallflower is a good depressing book in a nice kind of way, mostly sad, & simple but heartwarming.

Oh my God, The Sun Also Rises is the most unnerving book I have ever read. It is unnerving because it describes to a T the emptiness of a life that's consumed by just going out to eat, drinking, and going to bars and clubs. It's a life that was prominent in 1920s Europe and remains that way in suburban California for me today. This book made me realize just how empty my own life was.

Lydia Davis is an amazing writer. The End of Story is one of the most painfully honest accounts of how “love” is born and killed i have ever read..

I hate to be the “You forgot Prozac Nation” guy, but you forgot Prozac Nation. 

Seriously, Wurtzel's text is the fucking bible for depressed people.