James Nestor — Breath (Book Review)
James Nestor combines scientific exploration and his own experiences in Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art. The two aspects keep the book from being entirely memoir or entirely an academic treatise. At its heart, Nestor asks why breath matters. We breathe...Anne Fadiman — The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down (Book Review)
Author Anne Fadiman combines multiple narratives in her fabulous ethnography The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures. Most importantly, it’s both an immigration and a medical story of one Hmong...Quackery: A Brief History of the Worst Ways to Cure Everything by Lydia Kang, MD and Nate Pedersen (Book Review)
Quackery: A Brief History of the Worst Ways to Cure Everything by Lydia Kang and Nate Pedersen is two parts gasping at astounding purported medical cures. It’s also one part rubbernecker can’t look away no matter how yucky the example might be. I thoroughly enjoyed...Our Malady by Timothy Snyder—Healthcare, Freedom & Politics (Book Review)
Our Malady: Lessons in Liberty from a Hospital Diary by Timothy Snyder is just under 200 pages. While it’s not long, it covers topics we all face daily whether we know it or not—our health and freedom. A Yale professor, historian, and writer, Snyder was not well at...Book Review: Pale Rider by Laura Spinney
Laura Spinney covers a tremendous amount of ground with her excellent book, Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How it Changed the World. It’s a timely read for 2020, of course. And Spinney talks about everything from how the flu started and traveled, to how it...Book Review: And the Band Played On by Randy Shilts
Randy Shilts creates a tour de force history of the early years of the AIDS epidemic in And the Band Played On: Politics, People and the AIDS Epidemic. It’s 600 pages of intense details, drawn from thousands of interviews with 900+ people. Despite being published in...Book Review: Dopesick by Beth Macy
Beth Macy tells hard truths in her 2018 book, Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company that Addicted America. To me, it’s about the way capitalism allows one group of people to harm another, all in pursuit of the almighty dollar and in the guise of treating a...Book Review: Doing Harm by Maya Dusenberry
Maya Dusenberry compiles and analyzes a boat load of important information in Doing Harm: The Truth About How Bad Medicine and Lazy Science Leave Women Dismissed, Misdiagnosed, and Sick. Now you know her theme—the way women suffer because of misogyny and prejudicial...Book Review: The Angel and the Assassin by Donna Jackson Nakazawa
Donna Jackson Nakazawa is a favorite nonfiction author of mine. Her book, The Autoimmune Epidemic was one of the first books I read after being diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis 10 years ago. And I’ve devoured every one she’s written since. The Angel and the...Book Review: Elderhood by Louise Aronson
Louise Aronson subtitles Elderhood with the following: Redefining Aging, Transforming Medicine, Reimagining Life. I submit that she focuses primarily on the second of these topics, rather than the other two. And that makes sense because she has many years of...Book Review: Ticker: The Quest to Create an Artificial Heart by Mimi Swartz
Mimi Swartz tells the story of a group of cardiac surgeons all vying for the title of creator. Not with a capital C, but creator of the first functional artificial heart. And by group, I don’t mean to imply they worked together. Some did, and some didn’t. Competition...Book Review: On Our Terms: Empowering the New Health Consumer by Glen Tullman
Overview On Our Terms: Empowering the New Health Consumer is written by corporate CEO Glen Tullman. His theorizes that we are moving into an era of health consumers, rather than patients. Considering patient comes from the Latin word meaning suffering, I’m willing to...Book Review: Be Your Own Superhero: A Road Map to Resilience When Faced with Chronic Dis-ease by Barbara Appelbaum
Barbara Appelbaum has lived through, and with, some significant challenges in her life. Diagnosed with MS in her early forties, she’s taken an integrative approach to treating the disease. She also made some huge life changes in response to her diagnosis, including...Book Review: An American Sickness: How Healthcare Became Big Business and How You Can Take It Back by Elisabeth Rosenthal
If healthcare in the United States frustrates you, An American Sickness: How Healthcare Became Big Business and How You Can Take It Back by Elisabeth Rosenthal is the book for you. It alternately made me furious, sad, and empowered me to ask a thousand more questions...Book Review: The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk, M.D.
I’ve had The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk, M.D. on my shelves (both analog and audio) for quite a few months. I suppose I put it off because trauma is such a heavy subject. However, I unexpectedly found the tone to be comfortable and almost...Bookshop.Org Affiliate
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I will definitely recommend Kick Pain in the Kitchen to my patients: Those who are looking to avoid pharmaceutical treatment and those who want to combine western medicine with alternative therapies.
Jane A. Swartz
ARNP, MSN, Rheumatology Nurse Practitioner
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