Explore our new BookBrowse Community Forum!

Andrew Solomon Biography, Books, and Similar Authors

Author Biography  | Interview  | Books by this Author  | Read-Alikes

Andrew Solomon

Andrew Solomon

Andrew Solomon Biography

Andrew Solomon studied at Yale University, where he graduated magna cum laude in 1985, and then at Jesus College Cambridge, where he received the top first-class degree in English in his year, the only foreign student ever to be so-honored, as well as the University writing prize.

In 1988, he began his study of Russian artists, which culminated with the publication of The Irony Tower: Soviet Artists in a Time of Glasnost. He was asked in 1993 to consult with members of the National Security Council on Russian affairs and wrote parts of Clinton's first Russia speeches; that year he was also named a Contributing Writer of The New York Times Magazine, a position he held until 2001. His reissued first novel, A Stone Boat, was a runner up for the LA Times First Fiction prize and was a national bestseller; it has now been published in 5 languages.

Solomon's book, The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression (2001), has won him fourteen national awards, including the 2001 National Book Award, and is being published in 22 languages. It was also a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, and has been on the New York Times bestseller list in both hardback and paperback. It was chosen an American Library Association Notable Book of 2001 and a New York Times Notable Book.

Solomon has lectured on depression around the world, including recent stints at Princeton, Yale, Stanford, Harvard, MIT, Cambridge, and the Library of Congress. He is a regular contributor to numerous publications, including The New York Times, The New Yorker, and Artforum. He has joined the board of the National Mental Health Awareness Campaign and of the Depression Center of the University of Michigan. He is a professor of Clinicla Psychology at Columbia University Medical Center, and on the Conservators' Council of the New York Public Library. He is a fellow of Berkeley College at Yale University and is a member of the New York Institute for the Humanities and the Council on Foreign Relations. In 2015, Solomon was elected President of PEN American Center.

Solomon married John Habich in an official civil partnership ceremony in 2007. They maintain residences in London and New York and have a son together.

Andrew Solomon's website

This bio was last updated on 12/13/2016. In a perfect world, we would like to keep all of BookBrowse's biographies up to date, but with many thousands of lives to keep track of it's simply impossible to do. So, if the date of this bio is not recent, you may wish to do an internet search for a more current source, such as the author's website or social media presence. If you are the author or publisher and would like us to update this biography, send the complete text and we will replace the old with the new.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Interview

An in-depth interview with Andrew Solomon as he shares his insights on the many facets of depression.

An interview with Andrew Solomon, author of The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression

You are extremely articulate and self-aware, which no doubt proved hugely useful in both your talk therapy and work with a pychopharmocologist. However, how do less communicative, less aware people fare? Is recovery or degree of recovery linked to the ability to speak?

The ability to speak about your mood states absolutely helps in the process of recuperation. It's not that people who don't know how to talk about depression get sicker, but that they stay sick for longer, make less satisfactory recoveries. I found several people during my research who said that the day someone called their problem depression and gave them a word to use for it was the day they began to get better. I put forward in my book the idea that there is actually a neuroanatomical reason why talking about things makes you feel better about them. Describing your depression can activates bits of brain circuitry that are extremely positive. Though obsessing about your problems makes them worse, talking about them gives you some control of them. One of my aims in writing this book was to show people how to talk about depression, to give them a ...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Books by this Author

Books by Andrew Solomon at BookBrowse
Far From the Tree jacket The Noonday Demon jacket
Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Read-Alikes

All the books below are recommended as read-alikes for Andrew Solomon but some maybe more relevant to you than others depending on which books by the author you have read and enjoyed. So look for the suggested read-alikes by title linked on the right.
How we choose read-alikes

  • Anil Ananthaswamy

    Anil Ananthaswamy

    Anil Ananthaswamy is former deputy news editor and current consultant for New Scientist. He is a guest editor at UC Santa Cruz's renowned science-writing program and teaches an annual science journalism workshop at the ... (more)

    If you enjoyed:
    Far From the Tree

    Try:
    The Man Who Wasn't There
    by Anil Ananthaswamy

  • Cris Beam

    Cris Beam

    Cris Beam is the author of Transparent and has written for public radio's This American Life, as well as for several national magazines. She has an MFA in writing from Columbia and teaches creative writing at Columbia, NYU, ... (more)

    If you enjoyed:
    Far From the Tree

    Try:
    I Am J
    by Cris Beam

We recommend 17 similar authors


Non-members can see 2 results. Become a member
Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Top Picks

  • Book Jacket: Graveyard Shift
    Graveyard Shift
    by M. L. Rio
    Following the success of her debut novel, If We Were Villains, M. L. Rio's latest book is the quasi-...
  • Book Jacket: The Sisters K
    The Sisters K
    by Maureen Sun
    The Kim sisters—Minah, Sarah, and Esther—have just learned their father is dying of ...
  • Book Jacket: Linguaphile
    Linguaphile
    by Julie Sedivy
    From an infant's first attempts to connect with the world around them to the final words shared with...
  • Book Jacket
    The Rest of You
    by Maame Blue
    At the start of Maame Blue's The Rest of You, Whitney Appiah, a Ghanaian Londoner, is ringing in her...

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket

    Pony Confidential
    by Christina Lynch

    In this whimsical mystery, a grumpy pony must clear his beloved human's name from a murder accusation.

Who Said...

You can lead a man to Congress, but you can't make him think.

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

F the M

and be entered to win..

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.