Working Stiff: Two Years, 262 Bodies, and the Making of a Medical Examiner

Brain 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

Déjà Dead

Kathy Reichs · 509 pages

Un beau jour d'été à Montréal, sur la table de dissection du laboratoire de médecine légale de la police provinciale, arrive un cadavre découvert dans l'ancien parc du Grand Séminaire. Le docteur Temperance Brennan est chargé d'autopsier ce qu'il reste d'une femme découpée en morceaux. Sa sinistre expertise va l'amener en première ligne de l'enquête, face à l'assassin pervers qui collectionne les

Unnatural Exposure

Patricia Cornwell · 367 pages

Dr. Kay Scarpetta is newly returned from Dublin, where she was called in to examine the remains of a murder victim whose limbs and head were expertly severed - a signature of a cunning serial killer on the loose again after an eight-year sabbatical - when the same killer apparently strikes again, this time much closer to home. After Scarpetta investigates the murder scene, the killer boldly con

Direct Red: A Surgeon's View of Her Life-or-Death Profession

Gabriel Weston · 205 pages

The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York

Deborah Blum · 327 pages

The untold story of how poison rocked Jazz Age New York City. A pair of forensic scientists began their trailblazing chemical detective work, fighting to end an era when untraceable poisons offered an easy path to the perfect crime. Chief medical examiner Charles Norris and toxicologist Alexander Gettler investigate a family mysteriously stricken bald, factory workers with crumbling bones, a diner

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

Down Among the Dead Men: A Year in the Life of a Mortuary Technician

Michelle Williams · 262 pages

The Cobra Event

Richard Preston · 335 pages

The Cobra Event is the story of a secret counter-terror operation. It is a dramatic, heart-stopping account of a very real threat. The story begins one spring morning in New York City when a seventeen-year-old student wakes up feeling vaguely ill. She seems to be coming down with a cold. Hours later she is having violent seizures and has begun a hideous process of self-cannibalization. She is soo

Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death and Brain Surgery

Henry Marsh · 278 pages

In neurosurgery, more than in any other branch of medicine, the doctor's oath to "do no harm" holds a bitter irony. Operations on the brain carry grave risks. Every day, leading neurosurgeon Henry Marsh must make agonizing decisions, often in the face of great urgency and uncertainty. If you believe that brain surgery is a precise and exquisite craft, practiced by calm and detached doctors, thi

My Lobotomy

Howard Dully, Charles Fleming · 287 pages

At twelve, Howard Dully was guilty of the same crimes as other boys his age: he was moody and messy, rambunctious with his brothers, contrary just to prove a point, and perpetually at odds with his parents. Yet somehow, this normal boy became one of the youngest people on whom Dr. Walter Freeman performed his barbaric transorbital--or ice pick--lobotomy.Abandoned by his family within a year of the

Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers

Mary Roach · 304 pages

A hilarious and witty look into the history of using cadavers for science, grave diggers, and options to consider about your burial plan. A dark and uncomfortable subject made more palatable and downright funny.

The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women

Kate Moore · 480 pages

As World War I raged across the globe, hundreds of young women toiled away at the radium-dial factories, where they painted clock faces with a mysterious new substance called radium. Assured by their bosses that the luminous material was safe, the women themselves shone brightly in the dark, covered from head to toe with the glowing dust. With such a coveted job, these "shining girls" were conside

Intern: A Doctor's Initiation

Sandeep Jauhar · 320 pages

Intern is Dr. Sandeep Jauhar's story of his days and nights in residency at a busy hospital in New York City, a trial that led him to question his every assumption about medical care today. Residency―and especially its first year, the internship―is legendary for its brutality, and Jauhar's experience was even more harrowing than most. He switched from physics to medicine in order to follow a mo

Bossypants

Tina Fey · 277 pages

Tina Fey’s new book *Bossypants* is short, messy, and impossibly funny (an apt description of the comedian herself). From her humble roots growing up in Pennsylvania to her days doing amateur improv in Chicago to her early sketches on Saturday Night Live, Fey gives us a fascinating glimpse behind the curtain of modern comedy with equal doses of wit, candor, and self-deprecation. Some of the funnie

Not That Kind of Girl: A Young Woman Tells You What She's "Learned"

Lena Dunham · 287 pages

"If I could take what I've learned and make one menial job easier for you, or prevent you from having the kind of sex where you feel you must keep your sneakers on in case you want to run away during the act, then every misstep of mine was worthwhile. I'm already predicting my future shame at thinking I had anything to offer you, but also my future glory in having stopped you from trying an expens

Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly

Anthony Bourdain · 320 pages

A celebrity chef shares anecdotes of his experience in the restaurant industry, and of his journey from dishwasher to a position of fame in the food industry.

Critical

Robin Cook · 527 pages

Angela Dawson, M.D., appears to have it all: at the age of thirty-seven, she owns a fabulous New York City apartment, a stunning seaside house on Nantucket, and enjoys the perks of her prosperous lifestyle. But her climb to the top was rough, marked by a troubled childhood, a failed marriage, and the devastating blow of bankruptcy as a primary-care internist. Painfully aware of the role of economi

The Bell Jar

Sylvia Plath · 258 pages

The Bell Jar is a classic of American literature, with over two million copies sold in this country. This extraordinary work chronicles the crack-up of Esther Greenwood: brilliant, beautiful, enormously talented, successful - but slowly going under, and maybe for the last time. Step by careful step, Sylvia Plath takes us with Esther through a painful month in New York as a contest-winning junior

Weekends at Bellevue: Nine Years on the Night Shift at the Psych E.R.

Julie Holland · 310 pages

Documents a psychiatrist's employment at New York City's Bellevue Hospital while sharing the life lessons she learned from her patients and colleagues, describing some of the more remarkable cases of her career and their influences on her family life.

All Things Bright and Beautiful

James Herriot · 384 pages

Lilac Girls

Martha Hall Kelly · 512 pages

Inspired by the life of a real World War II heroine, this debut novel reveals a story of love, redemption, and secrets that were hidden for decades. New York socialite Caroline Ferriday has her hands full with her post at the French consulate and a new love on the horizon. But Caroline’s world is forever changed when Hitler’s army invades Poland in September 1939—and then sets its sights on Fr

Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital

Sheri Fink · 558 pages

Fink provides a landmark investigation of patient deaths at a New Orleans hospital ravaged by Hurricane Katrina-- and a suspenseful portrayal of the quest for truth and justice. After Katrina struck and the floodwaters rose, the power failed, and the heat climbed, exhausted caregivers chose to designate certain patients last for rescue. Months later, several health professionals faced criminal all

Farewell to the East End: The Last Days of the East End Midwives

Jennifer Worth · 321 pages

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

Rebecca Skloot · 381 pages