by Barbara the Bibliophage | Oct 10, 2020 | LEARN: Chronic Illness
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...
by Barbara the Bibliophage | Sep 1, 2020 | LEARN: Chronic Illness, RESIST: Politics
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...
by Barbara the Bibliophage | Jun 23, 2020 | LEARN: Chronic Illness
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...
by Barbara the Bibliophage | May 16, 2020 | LEARN: Chronic Illness
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...
by Barbara the Bibliophage | Apr 6, 2020 | LEARN: Chronic Illness
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...
by Barbara the Bibliophage | Feb 4, 2020 | LEARN: Chronic Illness
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...
by Barbara the Bibliophage | Dec 11, 2019 | LEARN: Chronic Illness
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...
by Barbara the Bibliophage | Jul 3, 2019 | LEARN: Chronic Illness, LEARN: Medical Memoir
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...
by Barbara the Bibliophage | Oct 3, 2018 | LEARN: Chronic Illness
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...
by Barbara the Bibliophage | Jul 28, 2018 | LEARN: Chronic Illness
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...
by Barbara the Bibliophage | Jun 17, 2018 | LEARN: Chronic Illness
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...
by Barbara the Bibliophage | Oct 31, 2017 | LEARN: Chronic Illness
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...
by Barbara the Bibliophage | Sep 10, 2017 | LEARN: Chronic Illness
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...
by Barbara the Bibliophage | Aug 12, 2017 | LEARN: Chronic Illness
I found Jerome Groopman’s book How Doctors Think helpful and enlightening. So when I happened across Your Medical Mind: How to Decide What is Right for You, written by Groopman and his wife Pamela Hartzband (both are MDs) I grabbed it right up. In truth, I also...
by Barbara the Bibliophage | Jun 22, 2017 | LEARN: Chronic Illness
Lori Dennis’ impassioned book, Lyme Madness, is the work of an unintentional activist. I picked it up expecting a detailed medical memoir about Dennis’ son Matt’s struggle with Lyme Disease. In fact, I’d guess that barely ten percent of the...
by Barbara the Bibliophage | Feb 3, 2017 | LEARN: Chronic Illness
Attending isn’t necessarily a book for everyone, but I appreciated many of the ideas Dr. Epstein puts forth. I think the primary audience is anyone in a health care provider, student, or administration role. However, as a massage therapist and chronic illness...
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