Solomon is a solid writer (although this one isn't as impressive as Far From the Tree) and this chronicle of depression is an interweaving of his own experiences with serious depression, interviews with others, and research. I especially appreciated his look into how other cultures around the world think about and address depression.

Solomon may be my favorite nonfiction author. He write both beautifully and clearly, thoughtfully and intelligently. I especially love how he treats his subjects with kindness and honesty and all in the context of his own humility.

Here, he shares his own experience with depressions, the experiences of several other people he has interviewed, the history of depression, various treatments, the politics and insurance, and the social implications. Bonus points because he acknowledges the interaction/intersection of race and poverty with depression.

Compelling interesting but after a while I just couldn't read it anymore.

Very curious about developments, evolution of depression, treatment, etc since the writing of this book.

It is with great relief that I finally finished this book. In addition to its monstrous length, both the timing of my reading and the content between the book's covers made completing it difficult. But! I am glad I did. Though I found the second half of the book more compelling than the first, often grew annoyed at Solomon for not better curating his interviews (huge walls of quotations are common), and wished he had directly addressed more issues of psychiatric ethics, I do think a lot of this book is masterful and important. Though I dog-eared many pages, I think the section that struck me most was an interview at the beginning of the book with a woman who set up a refuge camp for orphans and depressed women in Khmer Rouge. She describes the process of rehabilitating women who, though they survived war, would now likely die from their depression and incapacitating PTSD. She distracts them with music, teaches them to work, and encourages community. The key to overcoming, she says, is knowing "these three skills--forgetting, working, and loving." In writing this book about his own depression, the depression of others, and the tangled issues of depression at large, I think Solomon allows himself to remember his own suffering in order to forget it. And, as he says at the end, "is that not a rare joy?"

A comprehensive view of depression, from personal anecdotes to history, philosophy, psychology, pharmacology, sociology, and anthropology. It even proposes an evolutionary reason for the existence of depression. Not a happy read, but an interesting one.

I recommend against the audio version. The author reads in a nasally half-whine that nearly made me give up at several points.

Absolutely fabulous. This book moved me to my core and helped me understand myself better.

Especially after "Far From the Tree," I was expecting to get more out of this book, another extended personal/journalistic essay of a medical/social nature.

Maybe it's having grown up with an awareness of major depression from family history, a psychiatrist parent, or my own personal history with it, but the book didn't feel that revelatory. It is a well-written account of the author's experiences, with a few interesting explorations of different aspects of depression (the cross-cultural chapter's visit to Greenland Inuits is particularly good), but it's a bit dated at this point, and I didn't feel like my overall understanding of depression was advanced that much.

There's nothing egregiously wrong with this book, and I'm sure others will find it more helpful and affirming, but it didn't do that much for me as a whole.

This and "Night Falls Fast" are literally twin reads regarding this topic of suicide and depression :)