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24 books with the same feel
Include books by the same authorBrain on Fire: My Month of Madness
Susannah Cahalan · 288 pages
The book narrates Cahalan's issues with anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis and the process by which she was diagnosed with this form of encephalitis. She wakes up in a hospital with no memory of the events of the previous month, during which time she would have violent episodes and delusions. Her eventual diagnosis is made more difficult by various physicians misdiagnosing her with several theories s
When Breath Becomes Air
Paul Kalanithi · 256 pages
At the age of thirty-six, on the verge of completing a decade’s worth of training as a neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. One day he was a doctor treating the dying, and the next he was a patient struggling to live. And just like that, the future he and his wife had imagined evaporated. When Breath Becomes Air chronicles Kalanithi’s transformation from a naïve me
Mortality
Christopher Hitchens
"Courageous, insightful and candid thoughts on malady and mortality from one of our most celebrated writers"--Provided by the publisher.
Happy
Alex Lemon · 292 pages
His freshman year of college, Alex Lemon was supposed to be the star catcher on the Macalester College baseball team. He was the boy getting every girl, the hard-partying kid who everyone called Happy, often without even knowing his real name. In the spring of 1997, he had his first stroke. For two years Lemon coped with his deteriorating health by sinking deeper into alcohol and drug abuse. His c
The Two Kinds of Decay
Sarah Manguso · 184 pages
"At twenty-one, just starting to comprehend the usual puzzles of adulthood, Sarah Manguso was faced with yet another: a wildly unpredictable autoimmune disease that appeared suddenly and tore through her twenties, paralyzing her for weeks at a time, programming her first to expect nothing from life, and then, furiously, to expect everything ... Manguso recounts her struggle: blood cleansings, coll
Stir: My Broken Brain and the Meals That Brought Me Home
Jessica Fechtor · 279 pages
" M.F.K. Fisher meets Brain on Fire in this exquisite memoir of a 28-year-old food blogger who cooks her way back to health after a near-fatal aneurysm Jessica Fechtor was on top of the world: a Harvard graduate student, happily married, and thinking about starting a family. Then, while attending an academic conference, she went for a run and an aneurysm burst in her brain. Multiple surgeries left
Shouting Won't Help: Why I--and 50 Million Other Americans--Can't Hear You
Katherine Bouton · 276 pages
A memoir from the New York editor and writer in which she explores the invisible disability of deafness from personal, psychological, and physiological perspectives.
The Man Who Couldn't Eat
Jon Reiner · 313 pages
"Based on his Esquire magazine article, The man who couldn't eat is the very personal journey of Jon Reiner's struggle with chronic illness"--
Anatomy of an Illness: As Perceived by the Patient
Norman Cousins · 176 pages
The basic theme of this book is that every person must accept a certain measure of responsibility for his or her own recovery from disease or disability. This notion of patient responsibility is not new, of course, but the general philosophy behind the notion has seldom been stated better than in this book. Though the author is a layman, his ideas have achieved wide acceptance by the medical profe
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Jean-Dominique Bauby · 141 pages
The author, former editor of French Elle magazine, describes the rare stroke to the brain stem that left his mind intact in a nearly totally paralyzed body.
Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Afterlife
Eben Alexander · 196 pages
"A SCIENTIST'S CASE FOR THE AFTERLIFE Near-death experiences, or NDEs, are controversial. Thousands of people have had them, but many in the scientific community have argued that they are impossible. Dr. Eben Alexander was one of those people. A highly trained neurosurgeon who had operated on thousands of brains in the course of his career, Alexander knew that what people of faith call the "soul"
90 Minutes in Heaven: A True Story of Death & Life
Don Piper · 304 pages
An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness
Kay Redfield Jamison · 223 pages
From Kay Redfield Jamison - an international authority on manic-depressive illness, and one of the few women who are full professors of medicine at American universities - a remarkable personal testimony: the revelation of her own struggle since adolescence with manic-depression, and how it has shaped her life. Vividly, directly, with candor, wit, and simplicity, she takes us into the fascinating
Why I Wore Lipstick: To My Mastectomy
Geralyn Lucas · 208 pages
Geralyn Lucas shares her feelings and experiences after being diagnosed at age twenty-eight with breast cancer, discussing some of the choices she made, the people she met, and the courage she gained from wearing bright red lipstick to her surgery.
Better: How I Let Go of Control, Held On to Hope, and Found Joy in My Darkest Hour
Amy Robach · 247 pages
""I have breast cancer." When Good Morning America anchor Amy Robach revealed her shocking diagnosis on live television in November 2013, the seasoned news reporter embarked on the most difficult and illuminating journey of her life. In this intimate memoir, she retraces the twelve months following her brave announcement and speaks candidly, for the first time, about how her illness impacted her f
I Had Brain Surgery, What's Your Excuse?
Suzy Becker · 256 pages
The author describes her battle with seizures, coping with medical procedures and tests, and her brain surgery, in an illustrated memoir that explores the themes of creativity, healing, love, commitment, family, and personality.
The Council of Dads: My Daughters, My Illness, and the Men Who Could Be Me
Bruce Feiler · 240 pages
Bestselling author Bruce Feiler was a young father when he was diagnosed with cancer. He instantly worried what his daughters' lives would be like without him. "Would they wonder who I was? Would they wonder what I thought? Would they yearn for my approval, my love, my voice?"Three days later he came up with a stirring idea of how he might give them that voice. He would reach out to six men from a
Regine's Book: A Teen Girl's Last Words
Regine Stokke · 336 pages
True Strength: My Journey from Hercules to Mere Mortal and How Nearly Dying Saved My Life
Kevin Sorbo · 296 pages
Shrinkage: Manhood, Marriage, and the Tumor That Tried to Kill Me
Bryan Bishop · 320 pages
Late Fragments: Everything I Want to Tell You
Kate Gross · 246 pages
What are the things we live for? What matters most in life when your time is short? This brave, frank and heartbreaking book shows what it means to die before your time, and how to fill your life with wonder, hope and joy even in the face of tragedy. Ambitious and talented, Kate Gross worked at Number 10 Downing Street for two British Prime Ministers whilst only in her twenties. At thirty, she was
Just Here Trying to Save a Few Lives: Tales of Life and Death from the ER
Pamela Grim · 320 pages
This Is Going to Hurt: Secret Diaries of a Junior Doctor
Adam Kay · 278 pages
As soon as Adam Kay set foot on a hospital ward for the first time, he realized there's quite a lot they don't teach you at medical school ... His diaries from the NHS front line - scribbled in secret after long nights, endless days and missed weekends - are hilarious, horrifying and heartbreaking by turns. This Is Going to Hurt is everything you wanted to know about being a junior doctor, and mor