Reddit reviews What is the What

The ladycrappo 7-Step Dealing With Depression Plan
Brought to you by a chick who's been hospitalized for major depression on four separate occasions and is now living a relatively stable normal life

1. Exercise, exercise, exercise. This may be the last thing you feel like doing, but it's one of the cheapest, safest, most effective ways to boost your mood. Don't feel you have to go to a gym if the ambiance creeps you out; ride a bike, get out in the sunshine, whatever works for you.
   
   
2. Eat well. Shitty diets make you feel shitty physically and mentally. Depressed people tend to have trouble with eating either too much or too little, and with eating crappy stuff in general that wrecks your blood sugar and makes you lethargic. You don't need that. Make a good healthy diet a priority: fruits and veggies, whole grains, lean protein, unsaturated fats, you know the drill.
   
   
3. Get your sleep schedule sorted out. Don't let yourself sleep too much because you don't want to face life; it just makes you more listless. If you're having trouble sleeping enough, force yourself to get on a more regular schedule. Sleep is fundamental to good mental health.
   
   
4. Shower every day. Keep up with personal hygiene, even when you feel like a hideous human turdball. A clean turdball can feel slightly better about itself than a dirty turdball, and whatever bit of dignity and self-worth you can reclaim for yourself is really important.
   
   
5. Do stuff. You won't want to, you really won't want to, but do it anyways. Answer your phone, get out of the house, go out to eat or see a movie-- do normal people stuff despite your profound sense of abnormality. This serves to keep you feeling like a member of the human race, keep you connected with the people in your life who are your support system, and also just to distract you from the ugly world inside your head.
   
   
6. Read up on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, which is focused on concrete strategies of altering your thinking and behavior. Pick up a copy of Feeling Good and give it's recommendations a serious try.
   
   
7. Do what it takes to get out of your own head. Depression turns you in on yourself, blots out the larger world, traps you in the darker aspects of your own thinking. It's a particularly dark and dangerous sort of self-absorption. Do things that force you to empathize with other people, in other places: do some volunteer work, spend time with loved ones, read about people in unfortunate circumstances who maintain a core of dignity (e.g., What is the What).

There was an earler documentary called The Lost Boys of Sudan made prior to God Grew Tired Of Us, which I can't find online so I'd appreciate if someone could help me find it.

and this is a series of interviews:

part 1

part 2

part 3

part 4

This is a speech called They Poured Fire On Us From The Sky

Edit: The book What is the What is an excellent read as well

Here are a couple books I think are pretty good:

What is the What by David Eggers

Season of Migration to the North by Tayeb Salih

I change up the books on the non-fiction list every year and this one is no longer on the list. It's a good one though: here's a link to it on Amazon.

Students may enjoy looking into Dave Eggers' work. He's written another book I've considered putting on the non-fiction project list, Zeitoun, a wonderful fictionalized work of true events called What is the What, and he is the editor and founder of McSweeney's, which has spawned the cool sport's writing quarterly Grantland and a sister literary magazine, The Believer.

I have a lot of bookshelves
Oh, and as for recommendations I would highly recommend What is the What by Dave Eggers. I finished reading that recently and it was excellent. It was sad and funny and insightful.

Bibliophile

edit: If I win can I have The Cavendish Home for Boys and Girls I think my daughter might like reading this. It's not on my wishlist but my e-mail address is.

Dave Eggers' novel What Is The What is a fictionalized memoir about Valentino Achak Deng, one of the Lost Boys of Sudan. It's really beautifully written and very powerful.

What is the What