I’m a big fan of Andrew Solomon’s writings and would recommend the Noonday Demon to anyone interested in depression, mental illness or the human condition. It’s been translated into 22 languages, so it’s clearly not just me. Like his more recent book, Far From the Tree it represents a mammoth endeavour: years of research across the globe, copious interviews with scientists, patients, politicians, policy makers and courageous personal soul searching. He revisits the subject of depression here before Christmas at a TED talk. Like many dyslexics, he has an amazing way with words that anyone with half an hour spare should attend to.