Leslie Wolfe’s 2023 novel, The Surgeon, is a psychological thriller that achieved bestseller status on Amazon and UK Kindle charts. The novel follows Dr. Anne Wiley, a distinguished cardiothoracic surgeon whose perfect professional record is shattered when she loses a patient on the operating table. The situation spirals into a moral and ethical crisis when Anne recognizes the deceased patient as the man responsible for a deep-rooted family trauma. As a relentless prosecutor begins an... Read The Surgeon Summary

The Teenage Brain: A Neuroscientist’s Survival Guide to Raising Adolescents and Young Adults (2014) is by American neurologist Frances E. Jensen with journalist Amy Ellis Nutt. A New York Times bestseller, the book was nominated for the PEN/E.O. Wilson Prize for Literary Science Writing. The Teenage Brain is a guide to the workings of the adolescent brain aimed at parents. Using scientific research data combined with real-life stories and anecdotes, the author explains the changes... Read The Teenage Brain Summary

In The Tell-Tale Brain: A Neuroscientist’s Quest for What Makes Us Human (2010), award-winning neuroscientist V.S. Ramachandran explores various aspects of brain structure and functions. His approach to science is unique: Ramachandran studies patients with neurological disorders to better understand normal, healthy brains. He believes in simple, low-tech and easily-replicated experiments. While the book delves into complex topics, such as phantom limb syndrome and autism, Ramachandran uses case studies and research to illuminate the mysteries... Read The Tell-Tale Brain Summary

The Tennis Partner: A Story of Friendship and Loss (1998) is a memoir by physician Abraham Verghese. It follows his friendship with David Smith, a medical student recovering from drug addiction, and the regular games of tennis that lie at the heart of their relationship. The book explores the themes The Disease of Addiction, The Power of Ritual, and Navigating Loneliness and Conflict in Relationships.Verghese is a physician, professor, and best-selling author. His first book... Read The Tennis Partner Summary

The Tiger Flu by Larissa Lai is a work of dystopian speculative fiction first published in 2018 by Arsenal Pulp Press, an independent publisher based in Vancouver, Canada. With its focus on futuristic technologies that merge and manipulate human biology, The Tiger Flu can be subclassified as a cyber/biopunk thriller. The book won the 2019 Lambda Literary Award, which recognizes and celebrates the best LGBTQ books of the year. A Chinese Canadian, lesbian writer, Larissa... Read The Tiger Flu Summary

Michael A. Singer’s The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself, originally published in 2007, is a spiritual self-help book about living life from the point of view of centered consciousness. Identifying with the nonstop chaos of thinking, emotion, and stimulus in our minds causes most of our problems, and Singer offers insight about how to identify as pure awareness and simply notice our experiences pass by without identifying with them. He discusses how our levels... Read The Untethered Soul Summary

“The Virus” is a poem by the American poet Jericho Brown. It was published in his third poetry collection, The Tradition (2019), which received the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. The Pulitzer jury called it “a collection of masterful lyrics that combine delicacy with historical urgency in their loving evocation of bodies vulnerable to hostility and violence” (2020 Pulitzer Prizes). The poems address the themes of blackness, queerness, legacy, racism, and living with an incurable... Read The Virus Summary

Susan Sontag’s “The Way We Live Now” is a short story written during and about the early days of the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) epidemic in the US. Published in the New Yorker on November 24, 1986, the story follows the experiences of a social circle when one of their number is diagnosed with AIDS. Using stream of consciousness, Sontag illustrates arguments she made in Illness as Metaphor (1978), a work of critical theory, by... Read The Way We Live Now Summary

Daniel Mason’s 2018 novel, The Winter Soldier, is a work of historical fiction set on the Eastern Front of World War I. The author, a physician and clinical assistant professor of psychiatry, draws on his medical background to explore the physical and psychological toll of war. The story follows Lucius Krzelewski, a sheltered and inexperienced medical student from Vienna who enlists in the Austro-Hungarian army, eager for surgical experience. He is dispatched to a remote... Read The Winter Soldier Summary

First published in 1978, Sri Swami Satchidananda’s translation and commentary on The Yoga Sūtras of Patanjali presents the ancient spiritual philosophy as a practical science for mastering the mind. The original text, a collection of terse aphorisms, or short philosophical statements, compiled between 200 BCE and 400 CE, was designed for an oral tradition in which a teacher would expand upon its dense meanings. Satchidananda’s work serves this function for a modern audience, framing Yoga... Read The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali Summary

Think Like a Monk: Train Your Mind for Peace and Purpose Every Day by Jay Shetty combines personal anecdote, metaphor, scientific studies, and wisdom from various monastic texts. Shetty’s aim is to help readers embody the monastic mindset. This includes learning to let go of negativity, ego, and fear; embarking on a journey of personal growth; and investing in acts of gratitude and service. Shetty himself spent three years as a practicing monk, living at... Read Think Like a Monk Summary

This is Going to Hurt: Secret Diaries of a Junior Doctor by Adam Kay is a 2017 memoir chronicling the highs and lows of the author’s life as a junior doctor in the British National Health Service (NHS). Compiled from the diaries he kept during his medical training, the book gives readers an insider’s view of the grueling hours, difficult patients, and life-altering decisions that doctors face daily. The memoir is both a celebration of... Read This Is Going to Hurt Summary

This is Your Mind on Plants was written by American author Michael Pollan and was published in 2022 by Penguin Books. Pollan, whose previous works include The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Cooked, and How to Change Your Mind, has spent decades writing about food systems, gardening, nature, and human psychology. In his work Pollan shares three separate essays that explore some of the world’s most prominent drugs—opium, caffeine, and mescaline—and the plants that produce them. He also... Read This Is Your Mind on Plants Summary

Thrive is a nonfiction book by Arianna Huffington, a Greek American journalist, businesswoman, and wellness guru. In Thrive, Huffington advocates for a holistic approach to success that includes not only material prosperity but also physical, mental, and emotional wellbeing. Published in 2014, Thrive added to the growing interest in examining stress and burnout caused by American work culture and standards of success. Huffington points out, “To live the lives we truly want and deserve, and... Read Thrive Summary

Tiny Habits: The Small Changes That Change Everything, written by BJ Fogg and published in 2019, is a self-improvement guide that shows how people can create big differences in their lives by making very small changes in their habits. The book is based on modern theories of human behavior; its methods use rewards, not punishments, to lock in new habits that support people’s aspirations for better health, improved relationships, and more success at work and... Read Tiny Habits Summary

Together: The Healing Power of Human Connection in a Sometimes Lonely World is a work of nonfiction by Vivek H. Murthy, MD, an American physician and public health advocate who served as the 19th and 21st surgeon general of the United States. Originally published in 2020, the psychology and self-help book interweaves scientific research and anecdotes to demonstrate that loneliness is detrimental to mental and physical health and that human connection is key to physical... Read Together Summary

Twisted Hate (2022) is a new adult romance novel by Ana Huang. It is the third installment in the Twisted series, a quartet of interconnected love stories centered on four friends: Ava, Bridget, Jules, and Stella. The TikTok phenomenon is a USA Today, Publishers Weekly, and IndieReader bestseller. Told from alternating first-person perspectives, Twisted Hate follows the hate-to-love romance between Jules Ambrose and Josh Chen. Jules and Josh both navigate dark pasts, betrayal, and the... Read Twisted Hate Summary

Ultra-Processed People (2023) is a work of nutritional science and economics by British scientist Chris van Tulleken that discusses the rise of “ultra-processed food,” or UPF, in our diets. Created by industrial processes unavailable to humans throughout most of history, UPF, he argues, is responsible for many health problems, as it interferes with our body’s complex evolved relationship with food. Specifically, he argues that UPF causes obesity due to its calorie-dense, nutrient-poor nature, which makes... Read Ultra-Processed People Summary

The 2022 book Unmasking Autism: Discovering the New Faces of Neurodiversity by Devon Price offers a fresh and insightful perspective on Autism. Part self-help book and part educational text, the work is grounded in the principles of the neurodiversity movement and challenges conventional views of Autism. Drawing on his experiences as a social psychologist and Autism self-advocate, Price combines personal narrative and academic research to provide a comprehensive exploration of Autism, emphasizing its diversity and... Read Unmasking Autism Summary

Unwinding Anxiety: New Science Shows How to Break the Cycles of Worry and Fear and Heal Your Mind is a bestselling 2021 book by Dr. Judson Brewer. In his work, Brewer, an award-winning neuroscientist and psychiatrist, explains how anxiety can become entrenched in people’s behavior as habit loops. Using scientific evidence and engaging examples, Brewer coaches the reader on how to identify their own anxiety-related habits and offers tools to help them develop new thinking... Read Unwinding Anxiety Summary