Changes

|title=The Sunlight on the Garden: A Family in Love, War and Madness

|sort=Sunlight on the Garden

|buy=Yes

|borrow=Yes

|pages=256

|publisher=Granta Books

|date=April 2007

|isbn=978-1862079250

}}

When Elizabeth Speller had a mental breakdown she wondered if her family history might have played a part in her illness. As part of her recovery she looked at her family's past and in particular at four generations of women, at their hopes and half-truths, sexual indiscretions, eccentricities and the way in which they themselves had rewritten family history to suit their own purposes.

The book is well-worth reading just as a story, but if you are looking for personal accounts of mental illness then you might also enjoy [[A Secret Madness]], Elaine Bass' account of living with a husband who suffered from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. If you'd like to read about a man who worked his way through his mental problems by taking on an allotment then you might enjoy Robin Shelton's [[Allotted Time: Two Blokes, One Shed, No Idea]].

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