What to Read Next: The Best Minds by Jonathan Rosen
Volume 9, Issue #1
Hello readers and happy new year! I’m entering my ninth year of writing weekly book reviews for ya’ll — it’s hard to believe! I’ve been busy doing initial edits on my book manuscript, which means this is my first book review of 2026. My newsletter cadence will be a little bit different this year: rather than send two book reviews on Fridays, I’ll send solo reviews as soon as I finish them. That’ll make it easier to organize on my end and easier to search through on yours. Let’s jump in with my first book rec of the year.
The Best Minds: A Story of Friendship, Madness, and the Tragedy of Good Intentions by Jonathan Rosen
Friendship, mental illness, Wall Street riches, murder . . . The Best Minds immediately has all the ingredients for a page-turning true crime thriller.
But author Jonathan Rosen does much more than just crank out an airport bestseller. With a compelling mixture of introspective vulnerability (the murderer was his childhood friend), sociological/psychological insight, and compassionate storytelling, The Best Minds becomes something closer to a literary heavyweight.
Rosen tells the story of Michael Laudor, a gifted but deeply troubled man who ultimately killed his girlfriend after years of struggling with schizophrenia. The author traces the slow, often imperceptible ways that mental illness creeps into one’s life — those small moments that only look inevitable in hindsight. Laudor isn’t presented as a monster or a medical case study, but as a person shaped and misshaped by the institutions, expectations, and relationships around him.
I’ve long had an interest in reading about the science and experiences of severe mental illness. My grandmother, who passed away last spring, had schizophrenia; I have no memories of her living independently or being a “normal” grandma. Being a grandchild, though, gave me enough remove from the daily reality of her diagnosis that I can read about schizophrenia with interest and sympathy rather than the raw emotional and physical burden of it. It’s certainly true that the texture of our lives gives shape to our reading tastes.
The Best Minds sometimes felt a little long and sometimes veered a bit too literary for my tastes, but overall I enjoyed the experience and found it to be a revealing and thought-provoking narrative of illness, society, and the meaning of friendship amidst tragic circumstances.
Related Reads
Hidden Valley Road by Robert Kolker
Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen
Ten Days in a Mad-House by Nellie Bly
Brain on Fire by Susannah Cahalan
Be good to each other, and as always, I’d love to hear what you’re reading and enjoying.
-Jeremy
Hidden Valley Road is a fabulous book and I have recommended it often. Brain on Fire is also an engrossing read. I saw the author on tv and that is what motivated me to pick up the book. Both excellent and highly readable books. I watched a documentary about the Hidden Valley Road family. Tragic for those with schizophrenia as well as their caretakers.
Just finished a book in translation called The Cold by Linn Ullman. I swear that all the characters in the book had some form of mental illness. I also just finished reading Pastoral by Andre Alexis. Definitely gives you something to ponder.