The Happiness Trap: How to Stop Struggling and Start Living is a self-help psychology book by Dr. Russ Harris, a medical practitioner, psychotherapist, and leading expert in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). As a former general practitioner who became interested in the psychological aspects of medical practice, Harris has dedicated his career to understanding and teaching stress management and performance psychology. Originally published in 2007, the book represents a significant contribution to the popularization of... Read The Happiness Trap Summary

T.R. Reid’s The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care was published in 2009 and then rereleased in 2010 with an addendum that addressed the passage of the Affordable Care Act. Reid has worked for many years as a foreign correspondent for The Washington Post and was former chief of the newspaper’s Tokyo and London bureaus. Reid used the travel opportunities that his work offered to travel the world... Read The Healing of America Summary

The Hot Zone by Richard Preston is a non-fiction thriller, published in 1994, two years after his article “Crisis in the Hot Zone” appeared in The New Yorker. Preston writes often on Ebola, bioweapons, and emerging viruses. The Hot Zone deals with the breaking of Ebola into the human species and a 1989 incident in which an Ebola-like virus, the Reston virus, sweeps through a monkey quarantine facility outside of Washington, DC. The book served... Read The Hot Zone Summary

The House of God is a novel written by American author and doctor Samuel Bergman under the pseudonym Samuel Shem and originally published in 1978. The book is heavily based on Bergman’s own experiences as a medical intern in the early 1970s, and the fictional hospital “the House of God” is a thinly veiled fictional version of the Beth Israel teaching hospital associated with Harvard Medical School. The novel is a satire in the vein... Read The House of God Summary

The How of Happiness: A Scientific Approach to Getting the Life You Want is a book written by Sonja Lyubomirsky, an eminent psychology professor and researcher. Published in 2007, this book has played a significant role in the fields of positive psychology and self-help literature. Drawing on her expertise in psychology, Lyubomirsky delves into the science of happiness and provides Evidence-Based Strategies for Well-Being. The book covers various essential themes, including personal agency in happiness... Read The How of Happiness Summary

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot is a non-fiction book that tells the story of Lacks and her HeLa cells, or the immortal cell line that doctors retrieved from her cervical cancer cells. Crown Publishing Group published the book in 2010, and it won a National Academies Communication Award the following year. This guide refers to the Crown 2010 first edition. Henrietta Lacks was a black American woman who died of cancer... Read The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Summary

In The In-Between: Unforgettable Encounters During Life’s Final Moments, Hadley Vlahos, a hospice nurse, explores her experience caring for dying patients as it influences her own life. She writes in first person as she weaves together her professional and personal lives, which at times become indistinguishable from one another. Discounting the Introduction and Conclusion, the book is split into 12 chapters, each named after a different patient. This summary references the first edition of her... Read The In-Between Summary

Meghan O’Rourke is a bestselling author, poet, and editor whose second memoir, The Invisible Kingdom: Reimagining Chronic Illness, explores the mysterious rise of autoimmune disease and chronic illness in the United States. During her career as a journalist and teacher, she experienced her first symptoms of chronic illness. When her description of her array of disappearing, reappearing, and changing symptoms was met with skepticism from medical professionals, she began investigating her own illness and critiquing... Read The Invisible Kingdom Summary

The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales (1973) is British neurologist Dr. Oliver Sacks’s fourth book. Sacks is a renowned physician, professor, and writer whom the New York Times calls “the poet laureate of medicine.” Sacks is best known for his 1973 memoir Awakenings, in which he explores the history of the encephalitis lethargica epidemic. In 1990, the story was adapted into a critically acclaimed movie starring Robin Williams... Read The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat Summary

The Medicine Woman of Galveston (2024) is a novel by Amanda Skenandore. The story follows Dr. Tucia Hatherley, a doctor and single mother who is forced to join a traveling medicine show to provide for herself and her young son. The Medicine Woman of Galveston is Skenandore’s fifth book and explores themes of Examining and Dismantling Stereotypes and Prejudice, The Ethics of Survival, and The Workplace Challenges Faced by Women. Skenandore is an award-winning author... Read The Medicine Woman of Galveston Summary

“The Miracle of Morning” (2020) is a poem by Amanda Gorman concerning the coronavirus pandemic and its effect on the United States. Gorman prefers this poem to be a spoken word poem. Though Gorman wrote the poem in the early days of the pandemic, it captures some of the ongoing feelings of loss and hope the pandemic inspired in the public. Like most of Gorman’s poetry, “The Miracle of Morning” is uplifting and focuses on... Read The Miracle of Morning Summary

In The Mountain Is You: Transforming Self-Sabotage Into Self-Mastery, noted writer and emotional intelligence thought leader Brianna Wiest tackles the psychological barriers that often hinder individuals from realizing their full potential. Originally published in 2020, this work falls under the genre of self-help and personal development, with a particular focus on overcoming self-destructive habits to attain emotional well-being and self-mastery. The book has garnered considerable acclaim for its insights into the journey from self-sabotage to... Read The Mountain Is You Summary

The Music of Bees is a novel by American writer Eileen Garvin. It was published by Dutton in 2021 and is Garvin’s first novel. Set in Hood River, Oregon, in 2014, the story follows the lives of three people: Alice, a widowed beekeeper who has panic attacks; Jake, an 18-year-old who has depression stemming from an accident that left him paralyzed; and Harry, a young man who experiences social anxiety. Their lives intersect when Jake... Read The Music of Bees Summary

The Myth of Normal is a 2022 work of psychology, medicine, and social critique by Gabor Maté, a Canadian Hungarian author and physician, co-authored with Maté's son, Daniel. The book investigates why Western nations have seen a rise in health problems, such as diabetes and auto-immune diseases, despite the vast resources invested in their healthcare systems. Maté addresses this question by looking at the nature of Western culture, medicine, and childcare. He argues that the... Read The Myth of Normal Summary

In The Nature Principle, journalist and environmentalist Richard Louv calls for action against the nature-deficit disorder, a term he introduced in his bestselling novel Last Child in the Woods. Nature-deficit disorder is the mental, spiritual, emotional and physical detriment caused by a lack of connection with our natural environment. Written in five parts, Louv makes a compelling argument for decreasing the nature-deficit disorder in adults and presents recommendations for how to do so. Louv bases... Read The Nature Principle Summary

The New Menopause: Navigating Your Path Through Hormonal Change with Purpose, Power, and Facts (2024) by Mary Claire Haver is an insightful guide for women experiencing menopause and the related phases of perimenopause and postmenopause. Written by Dr. Haver, an OB-GYN and creator of the Galveston Diet, the book seeks to dispel myths, provide evidence-based information, and offer practical solutions for managing the physical, emotional, and psychological challenges associated with menopause. The focus of the... Read The New Menopause Summary

Amanda Skenandore’s 2022 historical novel, The Nurse’s Secret, is set in 1883 New York City against the backdrop of the Gilded Age. The story follows Una Kelly, a cunning young grifter from the slums who is forced to flee after being implicated in a murder. To evade the police, she cons her way into the Bellevue Training School for Nurses, the first of its kind in the United States. While hiding in plain sight, Una... Read The Nurse's Secret Summary

The Obesity Code: Unlocking the Secrets of Weight Loss is a work of nonfiction by Dr. Jason Fung, a Canadian nephrologist and expert in intermittent fasting. Founder of The Fasting Method, Fung argues that intermittent fasting, combined with a diet low in refined carbohydrates and high in natural fats, combats obesity and obesity-related diseases, notably, type 2 diabetes. Drawing on decades of clinical experience and secondary research, Fung debunks deeply engrained myths surrounding obesity, presenting... Read The Obesity Code Summary

The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan is an exploration of what people eat and why. Pollan is an immersive journalist who has studied and written on a wide range of topics including gardening, food, architecture, and psychedelics. Pollan is the Knight Professor of Science and Environmental Journalism at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. Each of Pollan’s books examines the intersection of humans and nature. Pollan’s 2001 book... Read The Omnivore's Dilemma Summary

Published in 2021, Marianne Cronin’s The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot is an adult realistic fiction novel. Two women with terminal conditions—17-year-old Lenni and 83-year-old Margot—become close friends and decide to create 100 paintings, one for each year of their lives. The novel won an Alex Award in 2022 and explores themes of friendship, stories, and forgiveness. The story alternates between Lenni’s and Margot’s viewpoints and uses flashbacks to explore their memories.Citations in... Read The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot Summary