Health & Medicine
Books about the practice of medicine and what doctors face every day. Sherwin B. Nuland's How We Die, a National Book Award winner, explains in clear and humane language how the body fails in common causes of death, so that patients and families can face the end with understanding. Atul Gawande's The Checklist Manifesto shows how a simple checklist reduces errors and saves lives in surgery and other complex work. Two thoughtful books by physicians for readers inside and outside medicine. See Health & Medicine for more.
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Health & Medicine
Books about specific diseases and the long struggle to treat them. John M. Barry's The Great Influenza tells the story of the 1918 flu pandemic, which killed tens of millions of people around the world, and of the American scientists and doctors who raced to understand it while modern medicine was still being born. Barry also shows how political decisions and wartime censorship made the pandemic worse, lessons that felt urgent again in recent years. A gripping history for general readers. See Health & Medicine for more.
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Health & Medicine
Honest books about mental illness and the families who live with it. Andrew Solomon's The Noonday Demon, a National Book Award winner, combines his own experience of depression with history, science and interviews. Robert Kolker's Hidden Valley Road tells the story of the Galvin family, six of whose twelve children were diagnosed with schizophrenia, and what they taught researchers. Jeannette Walls's memoir The Glass Castle shows a childhood shaped by a father's alcoholism. For readers, patients and families looking for understanding as much as information.
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Health & Medicine
Books about the brain and how it shapes who we are. Oliver Sacks's The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat tells the stories of patients with unusual neurological conditions, such as a man who cannot recognise faces, with curiosity and compassion. Robert M. Sapolsky's Behave explains human behaviour, from our best acts to our worst, by moving back in time from the moment of action through hormones, development and evolution. Two engaging books that make neuroscience accessible to every reader. See Health & Medicine for more.
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Health & Medicine
Public health is about protecting whole populations: tracking diseases, preventing their spread and preparing for the next outbreak. John M. Barry's The Great Influenza is a classic case study, the history of the 1918 pandemic and of the early public-health officials, scientists and doctors who tried to contain it. Barry shows what worked, what failed and why honest public communication matters in a crisis. Essential reading for anyone interested in epidemics and public health. More books will join this shelf; see Health & Medicine for more.
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Health & Medicine
Healthcare systems decide who gets care, what kind and at what cost. Andrew Solomon's The Noonday Demon, a National Book Award-winning study of depression, looks beyond personal experience at how depression is treated: medication, therapy and access to care, the politics of mental health and how poverty affects treatment. It is a wide-ranging and humane book for readers who want to understand both the illness and the systems meant to help. More books on health systems will join this shelf; see Health & Medicine for related reading.
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Health & Medicine
Books that ask what medicine owes the people it treats. Sherwin B. Nuland's How We Die describes, plainly and humanely, how the body fails, and why we should talk about it. Paul Kalanithi's When Breath Becomes Air, written by a neurosurgeon facing terminal cancer, asks what makes life worth living. Oliver Sacks's The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat treats patients with unusual brain conditions as whole people, and Kazuo Ishiguro's novel Never Let Me Go imagines a society that raises some lives only to serve others. Thoughtful reading for patients, caregivers and anyone who works in health.
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