The Death Gap: How Inequality Kills (2017) is a nonfiction work by David A. Ansell that examines health disparities in the United States. Ansell, a Chicago physician and public health advocate, draws on his extensive experience working in underserved communities to expose the realities of how socioeconomic factors drastically affect health outcomes. Throughout the work, Ansell explores themes of inequality, systemic racism, and social justice, examining Healthcare as a Human Right VS Commodity; Environmental and... Read The Death Gap Summary

Nadine Burke Harris’s The Deepest Well: Healing the Long-Term Effects of Childhood Adversity is a 2018 nonfiction book that explores the evolving science on the relationship between adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and health disparities. Burke Harris is a pediatrician, a founder of San Francisco’s Center for Youth Wellness, and the first surgeon general of California. In her book, she recounts how her pediatric practice in San Francisco’s Bayview community helped her link childhood trauma to... Read The Deepest Well Summary

Richard Preston’s The Demon in the Freezer is a nonfiction account of the recent history of bioweapons and epidemic diseases; his focus for much of the book is smallpox, the “demon” of the title. The book begins with a discussion of the lethal bioweapons attack that took place early in October of 2001. In this instance, letters containing anthrax were mailed to publications and Senate offices in the United States. However, researchers at the United... Read The Demon in the Freezer Summary

This memoir is a series of autobiographical vignettes that was composed over the span of two months (July-August, 1996) by Jean-Dominique Bauby, with the help of a publishing assistant named Claude. He dispatches from room 119 of the Naval Hospital at Berck-sur-Mer, France. The vignettes do not follow a chronological order, and interweave recollections of various eras in Bauby’s life with his contemporary reality. Bauby suffered a massive stroke on December 8, 1995 that left... Read The Diving Bell and the Butterfly Summary

Janice P. Nimura’s The Doctors Blackwell: How Two Pioneering Sisters Brought Medicine to Women and Women to Medicine is a 2021 biography of Elizabeth and Emily Blackwell that chronicles their lives and achievements. As two of the first women in America to receive medical degrees, the Blackwell sisters defied the rigid gender norms of the 19th century and paved the way for future women to pursue careers in medicine. Nimura's writing highlights their struggles and... Read The Doctors Blackwell Summary

This book combines two of Aldous Huxley’s essays, “The Doors of Perception” (1954) and “Heaven and Hell” (1956), which explore the nature of consciousness and the perception of reality. Reflecting Huxley’s characteristic blend of scientific curiosity, philosophical rigor, and literary precision, these essays significantly influenced conversations about psychology, spirituality, and culture.Huxley, a novelist and essayist celebrated as one of the 20th century’s most influential intellectuals, is best known for his 1932 novel Brave New World... Read The Doors of Perception, and Heaven and Hell Summary

The Elephant Man, a one-act play by American playwright Bernard Pomerance, was first produced in London at the Hampstead Theatre in 1977. The play transferred to New York and played Off-Broadway in 1979, moving to Broadway three months later, where it ran successfully for two years. The play won many awards with its Broadway debut, including a New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Best Play, a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding New Play, and... Read The Elephant Man Summary

The Empathy Exams: Essays by Leslie Jamison is a collection of nonfiction essays that are connected thematically by pain and caring. Jamison uses a combination of personal experiences and journalistic approaches to ponder essential questions about both physical and emotional wounds, tenderness, and how people connect through pain. First published in April 2014, this collection premiered at #11 on the New York Times bestseller list and has received considerable acclaim from reviewers across the world... Read The Empathy Exams Summary

Siddhartha Mukherjee’s book, The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer, is nothing less than an account of the 4,000-year quest to understand and treat cancer, a malady that continues to plague us over the centuries. Mukherjee, an Indian-American oncologist and author, received a Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction for the 2010 work. The autobiography opens with Mukherjee’s fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital, where he treats a 31-year-old mother named Carla Reed, who has... Read The Emperor of All Maladies Summary

“The End of Science Fiction” by Lisel Mueller, published in 1996 in her collection Alive and Together: New and Selected Poems from Louisiana State University Press, considers a tipping point in the relationship between technology and human beings. The poem posits that the genre of science fiction has come to an end as humans become indistinguishable from the machines they’ve produced.“The End of Science Fiction” is written in four stanzas of unrhymed free verse. Alluding... Read The End of Science Fiction Summary

The Female Brain, written by Louann Brizendine, MD, and published in 2006, is a self-help book that argues that gendered behavior is the result of physiological and neurological differences between female and male brains. Brizendine studied at Berkeley, Yale, and Harvard, amassed over 20 years of clinical experience as a neuropsychiatrist, and started the Women’s Mood and Hormone Clinic at the University of California, San Francisco. In The Female Brain, Brizendine describes being struck by... Read The Female Brain Summary

The Gene: An Intimate History (2016) by Siddhartha Mukherjee weaves a family narrative with the tale of the evolution of genetics. Informed by Mukherjee’s experience as an oncologist and researcher, the book showcases both the life-changing potential, as well as danger, of gene-editing technologies. Mukherjee uses the cautionary tale of eugenics to examine what the power to change the genetic structure of human beings means in a fraught, fragmented world. Refuting notions such as biological... Read The Gene Summary

The Ghost Map: The Story of London’s Most Terrifying Epidemic—and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World is a nonfiction book by Steven Johnson. It was published in 2006 and was named a Notable Book of the Year by the New York Times and a Best Book of the Year by Library Journal and Entertainment Weekly.The immediate subject of The Ghost Map is the cholera outbreak that took place in London in 1854... Read The Ghost Map Summary

Therapist and author Irvin D. Yalom wrote The Gift of Therapy: An Open Letter to a New Generation of Therapists and Their Patients in 2001. Yalom, a psychiatrist and psychotherapist with over three decades of experience, distills his wisdom in this book, which is written as an open letter to the younger generation of therapists. He offers advice on the therapist-patient dynamic, on effectively showing empathy and support, and on focusing on the present moment... Read The Gift of Therapy Summary

The Gifts of Imperfection: Your Guide to Wholehearted Living (2022) by Brené Brown (originally published as The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You’re Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are in 2010) introduces the key concepts that have become a signature of Brown’s research, such as reclaiming the importance of vulnerability and defining shame as an obstacle to self-development and connection. The original book spent 75 weeks on The New... Read The Gifts of Imperfection Summary

The Girl in His Shadow is the second novel by Audrey Blake, the pen name of the writing team comprised of Regina Sirois and Jaima Fixsen. This work of historical fiction examines the arbitrary standards for men and women that characterized London in the mid-19th century. The protagonist, Nora Beady, is orphaned by cholera and raised by a leading surgeon named Dr. Horace Croft. Under Croft’s care, Nora becomes a capable surgeon, but she is... Read The Girl in His Shadow Summary

Will Allen, author of the 2012 book The Good Food Revolution: Growing Healthy Food, People, and Communities, co-written with Charles Wilson, is an important figure in the American urban farming movement. Born into a farming family, Allen spent much of his adolescence and early adulthood hoping to avoid the agricultural life; however, after a career in professional basketball and later in corporate sales and marketing, Allen finds himself farming full-time, with idealism in his heart... Read The Good Food Revolution Summary

The Good Nurse: A True Story of Medicine, Madness, and Murder by Charles Graeber is a true crime biography of the life of Charles Cullen, one of the most prolific serial killers in US history. Graeber is an American journalist who spent time as a medical student before moving on to journalism, writing for many prolific news outlets. His joint history in medicine and writing provides him with the necessary expertise to explain the intimacies... Read The Good Nurse Summary

The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History is a 2004 nonfiction work by American historian John M. Barry. It traces the history of the worst pandemic in world history, the influenza pandemic of 1918 and 1919. Barry approaches the subject with a broad audience in mind, placing the story of the flu inside the broader story of medical and scientific history. While focusing on the men who fought the pandemic, Barry... Read The Great Influenza Summary

The Great Trouble: A Mystery of London, the Blue Death, and a Boy Called Eel (2013) is a middle grade historical fiction novel by American author Deborah Hopkinson. Hopkinson is a prolific writer of books for young readers and has published over 70 books, including biographies, picture books, middle grade historical fiction, and long-form nonfiction. The Great Trouble explores themes of class disparity and scientific inquiry and is set against the background of the 1854... Read The Great Trouble Summary