Anorexia & Bulimia
BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS ON ANOREXIA & BULIMIA
The Reading Cure (Non-fiction) by Laura Freeman
Laura Freeman was diagnosed with anorexia at fourteen years old. One by one, seeking to gain control over the food she was eating, she started to scrap out different food items from her diet until she began to starve. She had reached a significant low point in her life. It was her love for reading that saved her – specifically discovering food and recipes in literature which inspired her to re-introduce these in her diet. From Dickens’ plum puddings to Virginia Woolf’s soulful descriptions of bread, fruits and sweet pastries, her appetite slowly recovered. The Reading Cure is essentially a memoir of how literature can treat anorexia and offer hope on overcoming a difficult condition.
Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia (Non-fiction) by Marya Hornbacher
A New York Times Bestseller, this memoir is a terrifyingly honest account of Marya Hornbacher’s battle with both anorexia and bulimia. It truthfully and brutally accounts for her experiences as a sufferer. Beautifully written and emotionally wrenching the memoir provides for a unique insight into the two disorders from the perspective of a sufferer.
Looking for something more specific? Get something more tailored with our personalised book prescriptions within 48 hours. You might also find it helpful to explore these feelings in a bibliotherapy session or learn some bibliotherapy techniques to help you process these feelings by completing our online Bibliotherapy, Literature and Mental Health course or our book Bibliotherapy: The Healing Power of Reading.
A big hello and thank you for reading! Passionate about literature, psychology, and life I launched Book Therapy as an alternative form of therapy using the power of literature. I train mental health professionals, librarians, teachers as well as readers on using bibliotherapy in their own work through our online Bibliotherapy, Literature and Mental Health course. We also curate reading lists/personalised book prescriptions for clients based on their individual needs. This is our signature personalised reading service.
You can also check out Book Therapy’s other free reading lists and A- Z of book prescriptions (covering both fiction and non-fiction). These suggest books based on your existing life situation (e.g. anxiety, job change, relationship heartache) as well as interests (e.g memoir, historical fiction, non-fiction, crime etc). There’s also a Children’s A — Z of Book Prescriptions. Feel free to check out the blog for more literary gems. There’s also a post on my personal story of how I entered the world of bibliotherapy and book curation.
In this role, I have had the opportunity to publish two books called Bibliotherapy: The Healing Power of Reading and The Happiness Mindset, and write various literary essays and pieces for newspapers and magazines. I have undertaken bibliotherapy workshops for The United Nations, various libraries in New York and corporate organisations in the UK and US. My book recommendations have featured in the Guardian, Marie Claire, NBC News, Asian Voice, New York Observer, Sydney Telegraph and various other publications. If you are a parent you might enjoy a podcast I’ve recorded with speech and language therapist Sunita Shah on Raising A Reader & Storyteller. And if you’d like to connect, email me at bijal@booktherapy.io or www.booktherapy.io.
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