How Not to Kill Yourself: A Portrait of the Suicidal Mind
(Adobe EPUB eBook, Kindle Book, OverDrive Read)
“A deep meditation that searches through Martin’s past looking for answers about why he is the way he is, while also examining the role suicide has played in our culture for centuries, how it has evolved, and how philosophers have examined it.” —Esquire
“A rock for people who’ve been troubled by suicidal ideation, or have someone in their lives who is.” —The New York Times
“If you’re going to write a book about suicide, you have to be willing to say the true things, the scary things, the humiliating things. Because everybody who is being honest with themselves knows at least a little bit about the subject. If you lie or if you fudge, the reader will know.”
The last time Clancy Martin tried to kill himself was in his basement with a dog leash. It was one of over ten attempts throughout the course of his life. But he didn’t die, and like many who consider taking their own lives, he hid the attempt from his wife, family, coworkers, and students, slipping back into his daily life with a hoarse voice, a raw neck, and series of vague explanations.
In How Not to Kill Yourself, Martin chronicles his multiple suicide attempts in an intimate depiction of the mindset of someone obsessed with self-destruction. He argues that, for the vast majority of suicides, an attempt does not just come out of the blue, nor is it merely a violent reaction to a particular crisis or failure, but is the culmination of a host of long-standing issues. He also looks at the thinking of a number of great writers who have attempted suicide and detailed their experiences (such as David Foster Wallace, Yiyun Li, Akutagawa, Nelly Arcan, and others), at what the history of philosophy has to say both for and against suicide, and at the experiences of those who have reached out to him across the years to share their own struggles.
The result combines memoir with critical inquiry to powerfully give voice to what for many has long been incomprehensible, while showing those presently grappling with suicidal thoughts that they are not alone, and that the desire to kill oneself—like other self-destructive desires—is almost always temporary and avoidable.
If you are having problem transferring a title to your device, please fill out this support form or visit the library so we can help you to use our eBooks and eAudio Books.
Clancy Martin. (2023). How Not to Kill Yourself: A Portrait of the Suicidal Mind. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.
Chicago / Turabian - Author Date Citation (style guide)Clancy Martin. 2023. How Not to Kill Yourself: A Portrait of the Suicidal Mind. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.
Chicago / Turabian - Humanities Citation (style guide)Clancy Martin, How Not to Kill Yourself: A Portrait of the Suicidal Mind. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2023.
MLA Citation (style guide)Clancy Martin. How Not to Kill Yourself: A Portrait of the Suicidal Mind. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2023.
| Library | Owned | Available |
|---|---|---|
| Shared Digital Collection | 2 | 0 |
There are 2 holds on this title.
OverDrive Product Record
- images
- cover:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-100/0111-1/{31C7C985-021E-4E78-AE43-30F6A2565E38}IMG100.JPG
- type: image/jpeg
- thumbnail:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-200/0111-1/{31C7C985-021E-4E78-AE43-30F6A2565E38}IMG200.JPG
- type: image/jpeg
- cover150Wide:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-150/0111-1/{31C7C985-021E-4E78-AE43-30F6A2565E38}IMG150.JPG
- type: image/jpeg
- cover300Wide:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-400/0111-1/{31C7C985-021E-4E78-AE43-30F6A2565E38}IMG400.JPG
- type: image/jpeg
- cover:
- formats
- identifiers:
- type: ISBN
- value: 9780593317068
- name: Adobe EPUB eBook
- id: ebook-epub-adobe
- identifiers:
- identifiers:
- type: ASIN
- value: B0B1Y1ZKFX
- name: Kindle Book
- id: ebook-kindle
- identifiers:
- identifiers:
- type: ISBN
- value: 9780593317068
- name: OverDrive Read
- id: ebook-overdrive
- identifiers:
- otherFormatIdentifiers
- type: ISBN
- value: 9780593317051
- mediaType
- eBook
- primaryCreator
- role: Author
- name: Clancy Martin
- isOwnedByCollections
- True
- title
- How Not to Kill Yourself
- dateAdded
- 2023-03-24T19:32:00Z
- contentDetails
- href: https://link.overdrive.com/?websiteID=141&titleID=9015866
- type: text/html
- account:
- name: Sacramento Public Library (CA)
- id: 1151
- sortTitle
- How Not to Kill Yourself A Portrait of the Suicidal Mind
- crossRefId
- 9015866
- subtitle
- A Portrait of the Suicidal Mind
- id
- 31C7C985-021E-4E78-AE43-30F6A2565E38
- starRating
- 0
OverDrive MetaData
- isPublicDomain
- False
- formats
- fileName: HowNottoKillYourself_9780593317068_9015866
- partCount: 0
- fileSize: 1070179
- identifiers:
- type: ISBN
- value: 9780593317068
- rights:
- type: Copying
- value: 0
- type: Printing
- value: 0
- type: Lending
- value: 0
- type: ReadAloud
- value: 0
- type: ExpirationRights
- value: 0
- name: Adobe EPUB eBook
- isReadAlong: False
- id: ebook-epub-adobe
- onSaleDate: 3/28/2023
- samples:
- source: From the book
- formatType: ebook-overdrive
- url: https://samples.overdrive.com/?crid=31c7c985-021e-4e78-ae43-30f6a2565e38&.epub-sample.overdrive.com
- fileName: HowNottoKillYourself_9015866
- partCount: 0
- fileSize: 0
- identifiers:
- type: ASIN
- value: B0B1Y1ZKFX
- name: Kindle Book
- isReadAlong: False
- id: ebook-kindle
- onSaleDate: 3/28/2023
- samples:
- source: From the book
- formatType: ebook-overdrive
- url: https://samples.overdrive.com/?crid=31c7c985-021e-4e78-ae43-30f6a2565e38&.epub-sample.overdrive.com
- fileName: HowNottoKillYourself_9780593317068_9015866
- partCount: 0
- fileSize: 0
- identifiers:
- type: ISBN
- value: 9780593317068
- name: OverDrive Read
- isReadAlong: False
- id: ebook-overdrive
- onSaleDate: 3/28/2023
- samples:
- source: From the book
- formatType: ebook-overdrive
- url: https://samples.overdrive.com/?crid=31c7c985-021e-4e78-ae43-30f6a2565e38&.epub-sample.overdrive.com
- keywords
- value: Biography
- value: not
- value: Literary Criticism
- value: PTSD
- value: Substance Abuse
- value: autobiographies
- value: Neuroscience
- value: philosophy
- value: mental health
- value: Science
- value: love
- value: hopeless
- value: Death
- value: Suicide
- value: OCD
- value: Memoirs
- value: psychology
- value: grief
- value: self help
- value: survival
- value: how to
- value: self help books
- value: History
- value: Books
- value: depression
- value: memoir
- value: suicidal
- value: cognitive behavioral therapy
- value: mental health books
- value: philosophy books
- value: self improvement books
- value: Clancy Martin
- value: healing after loss
- value: best non fiction
- value: the grieving brain
- value: how not to kill yourself
- value: how not to kill your self
- value: how to not kill yourself
- creators
- role: Author
- fileAs: Martin, Clancy
- bioText: CLANCY MARTIN is the acclaimed author of the novel How to Sell (FSG) as well as numerous books on philosophy, and has translated works by Friedrich Nietzsche, Søren Kierkegaard, and other philosophers. A Guggenheim Fellow, his writing has appeared in The New Yorker, New York, The Atlantic, Harper’s, Esquire, The New Republic, Lapham’s Quarterly, The Believer, and The Paris Review. He is a professor of philosophy at the University of Missouri in Kansas City and Ashoka University in New Delhi. He is the survivor of more than ten suicide attempts and a recovering alcoholic.
- name: Clancy Martin
- imprint
- Vintage
- publishDate
- 2023-03-28T00:00:00-04:00
- isOwnedByCollections
- True
- title
- How Not to Kill Yourself
- fullDescription
- FINALIST FOR THE KIRKUS PRIZE FOR NONFICTION • ONE OF TIME'S 100 MUST-READ BOOKS OF THE YEAR • ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW'S CRITICS' PICKS • ONE OF THE BOSTON GLOBE’S 55 BOOKS WE LOVED THIS YEAR • ONE OF KIRKUS’S BEST NONFICTION BOOKS OF THE YEAR• An intimate, insightful, at times even humorous blend of memoir and philosophy that examines why the thought of death is so compulsive for some while demonstrating that there’s always another solution—from the acclaimed writer and philosophy professor, based on his viral essay, “I’m Still Here.”
“A deep meditation that searches through Martin’s past looking for answers about why he is the way he is, while also examining the role suicide has played in our culture for centuries, how it has evolved, and how philosophers have examined it.” —Esquire
“A rock for people who’ve been troubled by suicidal ideation, or have someone in their lives who is.” —The New York Times
“If you’re going to write a book about suicide, you have to be willing to say the true things, the scary things, the humiliating things. Because everybody who is being honest with themselves knows at least a little bit about the subject. If you lie or if you fudge, the reader will know.”
The last time Clancy Martin tried to kill himself was in his basement with a dog leash. It was one of over ten attempts throughout the course of his life. But he didn’t die, and like many who consider taking their own lives, he hid the attempt from his wife, family, coworkers, and students, slipping back into his daily life with a hoarse voice, a raw neck, and series of vague explanations.
In How Not to Kill Yourself, Martin chronicles his multiple suicide attempts in an intimate depiction of the mindset of someone obsessed with self-destruction. He argues that, for the vast majority of suicides, an attempt does not just come out of the blue, nor is it merely a violent reaction to a particular crisis or failure, but is the culmination of a host of long-standing issues. He also looks at the thinking of a number of great writers who have attempted suicide and detailed their experiences (such as David Foster Wallace, Yiyun Li, Akutagawa, Nelly Arcan, and others), at what the history of philosophy has to say both for and against suicide, and at the experiences of those who have reached out to him across the years to share their own struggles.
The result combines memoir with critical inquiry to powerfully give voice to what for many has long been incomprehensible, while showing those presently grappling with suicidal thoughts that they are not alone, and that the desire to kill oneself—like other self-destructive desires—is almost always temporary and avoidable. - reviews
- premium: True
- source:
- content:
October 1, 2022
Stand-up comic, actor (e.g., Netflix's Cobra Kai), and host of the No. 1 food podcast in the country, Green Eggs and Dan, Ahdoot uses an essay format in Undercooked to explain how food became a crutch and finally a dangerous obsession for him, starting with his brother's untimely death. Before he died of cancer, Braitman's father rushed to teach her important things like how to fix a carburetor and play good practical jokes; long after his death, she realized the cost of What Looks Like Bravery in suppressing her sorrow at his passing; following the New York Times best-selling Animal Madness. In Forager, journalism professor Dowd recalls her upbringing in the fervently Christian cult Field, founded by her domineering grandfather, where she was often cold, hungry, and abused and learned to put her trust in the natural world. Hospitalized from ages of 14 to 17 with anorexia nervosa, Freeman (House of Glass) recalls in Good Girls her subsequent years as a "functioning anorexic" and interviews doctors about new discoveries and treatments regarding the condition. In Happily, which draws on her Paris Review column of the same name, Mark uses fairytale to show how sociopolitical issues impact her own life, particularly as a Jewish woman raising Black children in the South. Philosophy professor Martin's How Not To Kill Yourself examines the mindset that has driven him to attempt suicide 10 times. Award-winning CBS journalist Miller here limns a sense of not Belonging: abandoned at birth by her mother, a Chicana hospital administrator who hushed up her affair with the married trauma surgeon (and Compton's first Black city councilman) who raised Miller, the author struggled to find her place in white-dominated schools and newsrooms and finally sought out her lost parent (60,000-copy first printing). From Mouton, Houston's first Black poet laureate and once ranked the No. 2 Best Female Performance Poet in the World (Poetry Slam Inc.), Black Chameleon relates an upbringing in a world devoid of the stories needed by Black children--which she argues women must now craft (60,000-copy first printing). A graduate of the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls in South Africa, Mount Holyoke College, and Columbia University, Ramotwala demonstrates The Will To Be in a memoir of early hardship (her mother's first-born daughter died in a firebombing before the author was born) and adjusting to life in the United States (75,000-copy first printing). In Stash, Robbins, host of the podcast The Only One in the Room, relates her recovery from dangerous drug use (e.g., stockpiling pills and scheduling withdrawals around PTA meetings and baby showers) as she struggles with being Black in a white world. Author of the multi-award-winning, multi-award-nominated No Visible Bruises, a study of domestic violence, Snyder follows up with Women We Buried, Women We Burned, her story of escaping the cult her widowed father joined and as a teenager making her way in the world (100,000-copy first printing).
Copyright 2022 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
- premium: True
- source:
- content:
Starred review from January 16, 2023
Philosopher and novelist Martin (How to Sell) delivers a disturbing and transfixing dissection of suicide and its circumstances. Toggling between the personal and the analytical, Martin presents a patient, chilling consideration of “what it’s like to want to kill yourself, sometimes on a daily basis, yet to go on living,” as well as his “own particular good reasons for doing so.” In three sections, Martin addresses societal conceptions of self-slaughter, his own struggles with alcohol and the times he hit rock bottom, and how to chart a path toward recovery. Along the way, he touches on famous suicides from Seneca to Anne Sexton, and historical and philosophical cases considering or even justifying the act, from philosophies as distinct as Bushido, pessimism, and stoicism. Funny but never flippant, Martin takes into account throughout the weight of his subject, even when describing his own grisly attempts, or those of his friends, without platitude or sentiment (“The last time I tried to kill myself,” the book begins, “was in my basement with a dog leash”). This provocative dive into a difficult subject shouldn’t be missed. Agent: Susan Golomb, Writers House.
- premium: True
- source:
- content:
Starred review from February 15, 2023
A recovering alcoholic reflects on his experiences with suicidal ideation. Novelist and philosophy professor Martin, the author of How To Sell and other books, has survived more than 10 suicide attempts. In his disturbing, thoughtfully composed self-analysis, the author admits to chronicling oscillating between hating his life and being grateful to be alive. Married three times and the father to five children, Martin harbors a deep understanding of others who suffer with the same dark feelings of despair, including several suicidal relatives in his deeply dysfunctional family. Each of the memoir's three sections correspond to distinctly pivotal periods in his life. The author considers how complex and pervasive thoughts of self-annihilation initially infiltrate someone's psyche. While mining his own experiences, including chilling anecdotes about his "gun-in-mouth phase," he describes the suicidal histories of notable writers and celebrities (Kate Spade, Anthony Bourdain, Robin Williams). While experts impart captivating psychological explanations, Martin's perspective inspires the most incisive and disquieting passages. Sections on his murky descent into alcoholism smoothly dovetail with accounts of the author's candid, heartfelt work toward making peace with life and pages of proactive "tools for crisis" for anyone considering suicide. As a philosopher, Martin provides sharp insight about how two distinct historical luminaries--Buddha and Freud--both postulated that the human "death drive" is as fundamental to our psychology as our desire to eat or have sex. Martin's belief that suicidal people can "see into the world of ghosts in a way that sturdier folks cannot" is as fascinating as his attempts to draw correlations between suicide and theories on addictive thinking. Not one to gloss over any aspect of his difficult journey, the author dissects the thorny dilemma that has tormented him since childhood. With dark humor intact, he humanizes it in a way that makes it palatable for readers chronically haunted by suicide--or those whose lives have been touched by it. Disquieting, deeply felt, eye-opening, and revelatory.COPYRIGHT(2023) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
- popularity
- 1810
- links
- self:
- href: https://api.overdrive.com/v1/collections/v1L1BWwAAAA2I/products/31c7c985-021e-4e78-ae43-30f6a2565e38/metadata
- type: application/vnd.overdrive.api+json
- self:
- id
- 31c7c985-021e-4e78-ae43-30f6a2565e38
- starRating
- 3.3
- images
- cover:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-100/0111-1/{31C7C985-021E-4E78-AE43-30F6A2565E38}IMG100.JPG
- type: image/jpeg
- thumbnail:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-200/0111-1/{31C7C985-021E-4E78-AE43-30F6A2565E38}IMG200.JPG
- type: image/jpeg
- cover150Wide:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-150/0111-1/{31C7C985-021E-4E78-AE43-30F6A2565E38}IMG150.JPG
- type: image/jpeg
- cover300Wide:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-400/0111-1/{31C7C985-021E-4E78-AE43-30F6A2565E38}IMG400.JPG
- type: image/jpeg
- cover:
- isPublicPerformanceAllowed
- False
- languages
- code: en
- name: English
- subjects
- value: Biography & Autobiography
- value: Philosophy
- value: Psychology
- value: Nonfiction
- publishDateText
- 03/28/2023
- otherFormatIdentifiers
- type: ISBN
- value: 9780593317051
- mediaType
- eBook
- shortDescription
- FINALIST FOR THE KIRKUS PRIZE FOR NONFICTION • ONE OF TIME'S 100 MUST-READ BOOKS OF THE YEAR • ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW'S CRITICS' PICKS • ONE OF THE BOSTON GLOBE’S 55 BOOKS WE LOVED THIS YEAR • ONE OF KIRKUS’S BEST NONFICTION BOOKS OF THE YEAR• An intimate, insightful, at times even humorous blend of memoir and philosophy that examines why the thought of death is so compulsive for some while demonstrating that there’s always another solution—from the acclaimed writer and philosophy professor, based on his viral essay, “I’m Still Here.”
“A deep meditation that searches through Martin’s past looking for answers about why he is the way he is, while also examining the role suicide has played in our culture for centuries, how it has evolved, and how philosophers have examined it.” —Esquire
... - sortTitle
- How Not to Kill Yourself A Portrait of the Suicidal Mind
- crossRefId
- 9015866
- subtitle
- A Portrait of the Suicidal Mind
- publisher
- Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
- bisacCodes
- code: BIO026000
- description: BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Memoirs
- code: PHI005000
- description: Philosophy / Ethics & Moral Philosophy
- code: PSY037000
- description: Psychology / Suicide
