Again courtesy of Sue, I have recently finished You Are not a Stranger Here. It is a collection of short stories with the running theme of mental illness. Might not be for everyone (!!) but I definitely enjoyed it. The characters' problems rum the gamut: acute to chronic, depression, grief, schizophrenia, manic.

I especially loved the inside view of a manic depressive's manic state. It puts my good days / bad days cycle to shame! I can have a few days of what I would consider amazing productivity, but they are usually followed by a couple days with little direction or focus. I figure it all evens out. And if I get four good days to two bad days, maybe I am ahead. But this guy gets more done in one 24-hour manic state than I could dream of in a month. Or maybe the key is that he gets more things half-done, then crashes. Anyway, a look into this kind of life definitely takes the edge off the guilt I feel when I'm in the middle of one of my unfocused days.