David Lester (1) (1942–)

Meh. This book was remarkably shallow. It covers 334 entries in under 150 pages. None of the entries are more than half a page long, and a few are only one sentence long. I counted three entries that didn't even mention the person's death at all. Also, it could have used another pass at the editor's table; I saw many typographical and contextual errors. I usually like David Lester's suicide studies but this one was a great disappointment.

A very interesting, thought-provoking study, looking at suicides not only among victims of the Holocaust but among its perpetrators and bystanders. The author presents a great deal of data and draws some conclusions that surprised me, but made sense with what he had to work with. I was, however, disappointed that he only talked about suicides in Western Europe. Suicides in Eastern Europe were practically ignored.

Excerpts from the real diary a troubled young woman kept in the year prior to her suicide. Various mental health professionals analyze the diary, each offering their opinion as to what was wrong with "Katie," what lead her to take her life and how her suicide could have been prevented.

This book is not a page-turner and not designed for the layman, but rather professionals and in particular psychotherapists. It was reasonably readable and understandable for me, but if you don't know a fair show more amount about psychology and different methods of therapy, you may lose your way in it. You could compare Katie's Diary with The Inner World of a Suicidal Youth, which also analyzes the diary of a young woman who committed suicide at about the same age Katie did. I liked Katie's Diary better, though, in large part because Katie was more likable than Electra. show less

A sociological textbook of suicide. This does not discuss specific cases, only statistical trends, and what factors you should consider before you try to draw conclusions from the numbers.

I certainly didn't find this nearly as interesting as many other suicide books I've read, but it's short and pithy and good for someone who wants the basics of suicide and doesn't want to plow through November of the Soul: the Enigma of Suicide (640 pages) or Night Falls Fast: Understanding Suicide (448 show more pages). This book is less than half the length of the latter, less than a third the length of the former. show less