Booksmith and The Bindery are very pleased to host the virtual launch for Roy Richard Grinker's new book Nobody's Normal: How Culture Created the Stigma of Mental Illness. Joining him in conversation is Steve Silberman (NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity).

This event is free and all ages, but RSVP is required. Event link will be sent to everyone who registers.

You can order Nobody's Normal here – we're currently offering free shipping throughout San Francisco and the East Bay.

For centuries, scientists and society cast moral judgments on anyone deemed mentally ill, confining many to asylums. In Nobody’s Normal, anthropologist Roy Richard Grinker chronicles the progress and setbacks in the struggle against mental-illness stigma—from the eighteenth century, through America’s major wars, and into today’s high-tech economy.

Nobody’s Normal argues that stigma is a social process that can be explained through cultural history, a process that began the moment we defined mental illness, that we learn from within our communities, and that we ultimately have the power to change. Though the legacies of shame and secrecy are still with us today, Grinker writes that we are at the cusp of ending the marginalization of the mentally ill. In the twenty-first century, mental illnesses are fast becoming a more accepted and visible part of human diversity.

Grinker infuses the book with the personal history of his family’s four generations of involvement in psychiatry, including his grandfather’s analysis with Sigmund Freud, his own daughter’s experience with autism, and culminating in his research on neurodiversity. Drawing on cutting-edge science, historical archives, and cross-cultural research in Africa and Asia, Grinker takes readers on an international journey to discover the origins of, and variances in, our cultural response to neurodiversity.

Urgent, eye-opening, and ultimately hopeful, Nobody’s Normal explains how we are transforming mental illness and offers a path to end the shadow of stigma.

Roy Richard Grinker is professor of anthropology and international affairs at the George Washington University. He is the author of several books, including Unstrange Minds: Remapping the World of Autism. He lives in Washington, DC. 

Steve Silberman is an award-winning science writer and the author of NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity, which Oliver Sacks called "a sweeping and penetrating history presented with a rare sympathy and sensitivity." The book became a widely-praised bestseller in the United States and the United Kingdom. His TED talk, The Forgotten History of Autism, has been viewed more than a million times and translated into 35 languages. He lives with his husband Keith in San Francisco. Author photo by Tanya Rosen-Jones.

This event is free and all ages, but RSVP is required. RSVP here.