The Noonday Demon
by Andrew Solomon
★ Top 25 book of 2001 · #15 on Best Books of 2001
Andrew Solomon looks at depression through personal, cultural, and scientific lenses, drawing on his own experience and many interviews. He covers treatments, historical and global impact, and ethical questions, while still finding reasons for hope.
Best for: Readers wanting a candid, wide-ranging look at depression and how it is treated
The Noonday Demon is #15 on BookWard's Best Books of 2001, out of 35 2001 books that cleared our data bar.
What The Noonday Demon is about
Andrew Solomon sets out to map depression from several angles at once: personal, cultural and scientific. Drawing on his own struggles with the illness, he builds on a 1998 New Yorker article and adds interviews with people who live with depression, doctors, research scientists, politicians and pharmaceutical researchers. He takes on the difficulty of defining the illness, surveys the medications and treatments on offer, and looks at how depression has affected different groups of people around the world and across history. He also asks what moral and ethical questions arise when mental illness is explained in biological terms. The tone is empathetic and thorough. It will help people living with depression, those who love them, and anyone who wants a fuller picture of the illness.
The Noonday Demon on the Best Books of 2001
The Noonday Demon came out in 2001. Of the 35 books first published in 2001 that met BookWard's data bar, it ranks #15 on our Best Books of 2001 list.
Why it made the list: 278 readers have shelved it on Open Library. The list ranks each year’s books on how many readers have picked them up, how highly readers rate them, and how many are reading them right now.
Nearby on the 2001 list
- Dreamcatcher Stephen King, #13
- Captain Underpants and the Wrath of the Wicked Wedgie Woman Dav Pilkey, #14
- The Surgeon Tess Gerritsen, #16
- Ella Minnow Pea Mark Dunn, #17
See all Best Books of 2001 Best books by year
More years: Best Books of 2000 Best Books of 2002.
The numbers behind it
- Readers: 256 want to read it, 11 are reading it now and 10 have read it, according to Open Library.
| Signal | This book (0 to 100) | Weight |
|---|---|---|
| Reach | 60 | 55% |
| Reader love | 54 | 25% |
| Being read right now | 54 | 20% |
Questions about The Noonday Demon
When was The Noonday Demon published?
The Noonday Demon by Andrew Solomon was first published in 2001.
Was The Noonday Demon one of the best books of 2001?
The Noonday Demon is #15 on BookWard's Best Books of 2001, out of 35 2001 books that cleared our data bar. 278 readers have shelved it on Open Library.
Why is The Noonday Demon on the Best Books of 2001 list?
278 readers have shelved it on Open Library.
More of the best books of 2001
- American Gods Neil Gaiman, #1
- Eat That Frog! 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time Brian Tracy, #2
- Crucial Conversations Kerry Patterson, #3
- Point Blanc Anthony Horowitz, #4
- Getting Things Done David Allen, #5
- Unbroken Laura Hillenbrand, #6
See the full Best Books of 2001, the Top 100, or new books on Rising.
How we know
This page uses public data: Open Library reader counts and ratings, and Wikipedia page views for recent years. The description is paraphrased from real source text. Rankings reflect reading interest, not quality or sales, and can be affected by data gaps. Lists update monthly.
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