Five years after 9/11, I’m experiencing a sea change. Books and movies on the topic became a no-no when, in 2003, I stupidly took home a photography book chronicling Twin Tower carnage. For a few nights, I had trouble sleeping—the image of a severed human leg had been burned into my brain. Then along came Oliver Stone’s movie, World Trade Center. A co-worker and I who were in New York on 9/11 confessed we both were eager to see it. Soon after, that same colleague remembered a passing comment I’d made at BEA about Sid Jacobsen and Ernie Colon’s The 9/11 Report: A Graphic Adaptation (Hill & Wang; review forthcoming) and left a spare copy on my desk. I let it sit and stare at me for a day, daring the book to scare me off. It didn’t. Although I’m only 20 pages in, I must say I’m riveted to the marrow, completely and utterly astounded by America’s innocence and naivite. The comic-book treatment does not, in my opinion, demean or sensationalize. Much like it did in Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis, it seems to cut through the cloud of confusion surrounding historical events, and I’m grateful more than anything.

On a related note, readers this time of year may be experiencing heightened anxiety and/or depression and looking to psychology books for help. Here are some relevant titles: Richard F. Mollica’s Healing Invisible Wounds: Paths to Hope and Recovery in a Violent World (Harcourt; review forthcoming), Boris Cyrulnik’s The Whispering of Ghosts: Trauma and Resilience (Other Press), On the Ground After September 11: Mental Health Responses and Practical Knowledge Gained (Haworth), Patricia Carrington and others’ Love You, Mean It (Hyperion, review forthcoming), and John S. Dacey and Lisa B. Fiore’s The Safe Child Handbook (Wiley, review forthcoming).