Meghan O’Rourke — The Invisible Kingdom (Book Review)
First, Meghan O’Rourke bares her soul about chronic illness in her 2022 book, The Invisible Kingdom: Reimagining Chronic Illness. And second, she analyzes how US medical care fails patients with difficult to diagnose chronic illnesses. This is two parts...Memoirs in Essay Form—Madden and O’Farrell (Book Reviews)
There’s nothing like sinking into a satisfying essay based memoir. Whether it’s following a cult survivor or a famous Hollywood star, slipping under another person’s skin is one of my favorite bookish pleasures. And sometimes memoirists step away from the simple...The Shape of Sound by Fiona Murphy (Book Review)
Fiona Murphy focuses her lyrical memoir, The Shape of Sound, on her experience with hearing and deafness. We follow her memories of childhood up until the present. So, we learn about her ongoing denial of being deaf in one ear. She analyzes how and why she hid her...Rebecca Whitehead Munn — All of Us Warriors (Book Review)
Cancer touched the life of Rebecca Whitehead Munn at an early age. Together with a wide circle of cancer patients and family members, she created All of Us Warriors: Cancer Stories of Survival and Loss. As often happens with cancer and other illnesses, this group of...Nicole Bell — What Lurks in the Woods (Book Review)
Nicole Bell tells her story of a thriving marriage unexpectedly disrupted in What Lurks in the Woods: Struggle and Hope in the Midst of Chronic Illness. Once I started it, I couldn’t put it down. Bell and her husband have two young kids. She lands a dream job, they...Renée Nicholson — Fierce and Delicate (Book Review)
Renée Nicholson writes about two different parts of her life in Fierce and Delicate: Essays on Dance and Illness. Initially, she’s the young dancer making sense of competition, instructor corrections, and visions of the future. As the essays progress, Nicholson...Michele Harper, M.D. — The Beauty in Breaking: A Memoir (Book Review)
Michele Harper, M.D. opens her heart in a memoir about her experiences in medicine, The Beauty in Breaking. But this book is more than that. It’s part meditation on finding herself amid divorce, moving to a new city, and finding peace in yoga and stillness. She’s also...Ruther Coker Burks —All the Young Men: A Memoir of Love, AIDS, and Chosen Family in the American South (Book Review)
Ruth Coker Burks writes about her experiences caring for HIV/AIDS patients in All the Young Men: A Memoir of Love, AIDS, and Chosen Family in the American South. She wasn’t a nurse or other health care provider. She was just a young woman with a big heart and buckets...Mona Hanna-Attisha Fights for the Children in What the Eyes Don’t See (Book Review)
Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha wrote What the Eyes Don’t See: A Story of Crisis, Resistance, and Hope in an American City to tell what happened in Flint, Michigan. But it’s not just her story. It’s the story of her clinic, her city, her state, and her country. And they are...Book Review: Attention, A Love Story by Casey Schwartz
Casey Schwartz writes a memoir and social history mash up in Attention, A Love Story. She’s a thirty-something woman who started using Adderal, a drug to treat ADHD, in college. But she took it without being diagnosed. It’s just one of those things college kids do,...Book Review: One Doctor by Brendan Reilly
Dr. Brendan Reilly creates a gripping memoir, One Doctor, by balancing several elements. As a hospitalist, a doctor working strictly with patients admitted to hospital, he details individual cases. At the same time, he reflects on how the cases affect him beyond the...Book Review: No Apparent Distress by Rachel Pearson, MD
In No Apparent Distress, Rachel Pearson writes a riveting account of her time in medical school. She’s especially focused on her work at a student-run charity medical clinic in Galveston, TX. Given everything happening these days along the Texas border, it’s even more...Book Review: Sick: A Memoir by Porochista Khakpour
Porochista Khakpour spends much of her book, Sick: A Memoir, talking about relationships. Sometimes it’s her parents or girlfriends. But more often it’s the men in her life. I’ve seen reviewers bemoan this. But here’s what I think. A single young woman, battling...Book Review: How to Change Your Mind: The New Science of Psychedelics by Michael Pollan
To learn what the latest Michael Pollan book, How to Change Your Mind, is about just check out its subtitle: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence. Pollan creates an epic book. It’s part...Book Review: Ask Me About My Uterus: A Quest to Make Doctors Believe in Women’s Pain by Abby Norman
Abby Norman tells her often harrowing story with grace in Ask Me About My Uterus. She’s had to make her way through life in pain, and mostly alone. I’m in awe of her courage and fortitude! Norman spent her childhood with an absent father, and a functionally absent...Bookshop.Org Affiliate
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