A Life of Books: Jessi Gold, author of How Do You Feel?

In his first report, How Do You Feel?: One Doctor’s Search for Personality in MedicinePsychiatrist Jessi Gold reflects on her own and her patients’ health care problems. He explores burnout, perfectionism, and job stress while emphasizing the importance of self-care.

We asked the author to answer our list of frequently asked questions so readers can get to know him better and get book recommendations.

Is there a book or series that, in retrospect, helped define your childhood?

I loved reading from a very young age and that is part of what motivated my parents to send me to school early (THANK YOU, books!). When I think about the books I read regularly, I liked Shel Silverstein, especially The Giving Treeand anything by Roald Dahl. I also loved that book The Last of the Really Big Whangdoodles by, as she is now known, Dame Julie Andrews. I remember when I was in the third grade we would go back inside after recess to hear our teacher read the next chapter and…then repeat that enthusiasm every day, until we finished it .

Would you like any children in your life (yours or relatives) to read them too? Or, what is your philosophy about what children read?

Every book I’ve read and loved I will still recommend (and do!), as I love to see how different friends’ children, or my siblings’ children, are. related to information from their experiences. Looking back, books like The Giving Treethat I write about in my book, HOW DO YOU FEEL?, it certainly means different things to me now—like selflessness really should have a limit—but it’s still books great ones for kids that inspire laughter and thought. They can make difficult emotional learning conversations easier, too, since you can have them openly based on the stories told in the books. I’ve taken to giving my friends’ children what I call an “emotional library” of books as their gifts in the hope that they will teach their children to live well with big emotions (something we all need to learn). younger.) Pout Pout Fish it’s a good one, too Rabbit Listen one.

I discovered some of my favorite authors in high school. What authors did you find at that time? Either the ones assigned to the group or the ones you found on your own.

When I entered High School, I was very confused What is terrible series. I loved science fiction (unscarred by my medical path) and I read the Harry Potter series. I was at an age where there were very long lines and long waits between them, but I devoured them when they came out.

Among the readings we had to do in high school, I loved Actor of Rye from jumping. I was also a big fan of the Brontës and Jane Austen, as well as all the plays of Tennessee Williams. I wrote my high school honors English course Tess of the D’urbervilles and Jane Eyre-Continuing fan of women writers and women themes though. I rediscovered my love for female comic books at that time, which always balanced out the serious books we had to read at school, or the topics I usually I may be interested in them as academic interests.

Were there any books you read while writing your first novel that helped shape the direction you took in your book?

I really tried not to model my book from other authors, so during the process I avoided books similar to the ones I was writing. I was also advised by my doctor to stop reading books about mental health or advocacy for the rest of my life in mental health and advocacy, so I took a media break and Go to all things Taylor Jenkins Reid. That was good because I love him.

However, because health care was always a plan, I read books by medical authors—or really inspired them—and they not only influenced my career path, but also my writing. Oliver Sacks and Atul Gawande were high on my regular reading list, instilling an interest in science and medicine, and at the same time, writing and storytelling. As I became more interested in psychiatry, mental health books entered the picture as well The brain is on firefor example, I was fascinated by the interaction of nature and mental life; What made Maddy Run it gave me the power to make a difference among citizens I cared deeply about; and The agency will not hold it normalized the problems my patients had and gave me (and them!) hope. Finally, Kay Redfield Jamison has been a role model for me as someone who broke barriers as a doctor by talking about her mental illness. She showed me that we don’t have to be passive, and she inspired me to tell my own story – to be vulnerable begets vulnerability.

What book have you read that made you think, Damn, I wish that was mine?

Giver It is one of the best books I have ever read.

What have you been reading lately that you would recommend to Debutiful readers?

Your readers may hate that I read so many books at once and (sometimes) never finish them all. But now read: James: Novel (recommended to me by my neighborhood book club) and Women. I’ve also had a few friends become debut authors this year (Uche Blackstock, Jack Turban, Pooja Lakshmin, Stephanie Harrison, Bapu Jena, Resa Lewis to name a few) and all their books are on my list!

And, finally, I have to ask… I’m sorry. What’s next? But wait! Use only three words.

Happy Holidays.