Lisa Genova’s second novel, Left Neglected (2011), is the fictional story of Sarah Nickerson, a high-powered executive whose life changes forever when she is in a serious car accident. Genova is the New York Times bestselling author of several novels, each dealing with a different neurological condition. She graduated from Bates College with a degree in biopsychology and from Harvard University with a doctorate in neuroscience, a background that influences her writing. Other works by... Read Left Neglected Summary

Living Downstream is a 1997 book (updated in 2010) by Sandra Steingraber, a biologist and poet who is also a survivor of bladder cancer. Primarily a data-based examination of the link between environmental contamination and cancer, the book is also an autobiographical account of Steingraber’s experience with the subject matter in rural Illinois. The book reflects several themes: The Paradox of Silence, Personalizing Scientific Research Through Memoir, and War as a Backdrop for Environmental Contamination.While... Read Living Downstream Summary

Lost Connections: Why You’re Depressed and How to Find Hope (2018) is a work of journalistic nonfiction by Johann Hari. In some editions, it has the subtitle Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression instead of Why You’re Depressed and How to Find Hope. The work argues for looking at the social and economic causes of depression, rather than viewing depression as mainly a chemical imbalance. Hari is a Scottish-Swiss journalist who was diagnosed with clinical... Read Lost Connections Summary

Mama Might Be Better Off Dead: The Failure of Health Care in Urban America by Laurie Kaye Abraham is a 1993 journalistic account of one Chicago family’s struggles within the American healthcare system as they suffer from incurable chronic illnesses. Abraham, an investigative medical journalist who later went on to become a senior editor at Elle magazine, followed the Banes family between 1989 and 1990 to humanize the broader issue of healthcare inequity which was... Read Mama Might Be Better Off Dead Summary

In the 2007 nonfiction book Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present, medical researcher Harriet A. Washington describes the long history of American medical experiments on Black Americans. Although some of these abuses are well-known, such as the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, the book presents a comprehensive history that describes the long-standing pattern of exploitative practices. By uncovering how American medicine has been built upon the... Read Medical Apartheid Summary

Mercy (1996) is a novel by Jodi Picoult. Cameron MacDonald, a police chief in a small town, arrests his cousin for killing his wife, who was dying of cancer, on her request. The story follows the arrest and subsequent trial. The book explores themes of power dynamics in romantic relationships, the weight of familial duty, and mercy and the law.Jodi Picoult is a prolific author and a New York Times bestseller. Her list of awards... Read Mercy Summary

Midwives (1997) by Chris Bohjalian is a literary novel that blends courtroom drama with a coming-of-age narrative, exploring the moral and legal ambiguities surrounding home birth and medical responsibility. Told retrospectively by the daughter of a midwife who is on trial for involuntary manslaughter, the novel examines themes such as The Debate Between Alternative and Institutionalized Medicine, Growing Up in the Shadow of a Family Scandal, and The Legal System’s Power to Define the Truth.This... Read Midwives Summary

Alan Brennert’s Moloka’i, published in 2003, offers a fictional account of the life of Rachel Kalama, a native Hawaiian with Hansen’s disease. A writer for television and film and the author of numerous books, short story collections, and comic books, Brennert has won an Emmy and a People’s Choice Award for L.A. Law and a Nebula Award for “Ma Qui,” a short story. As historical fiction, Moloka’i realistically depicts life for Hawaiians with Hansen’s disease... Read Moloka'i Summary

Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World is a 2003 nonfiction book by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Tracy Kidder. It is an expansion of “The Good Doctor,” a 2000 article for The New Yorker and the winner of the 2004 Lettre Ulysses Award for the Art of Reportage. The book profiles Dr. Paul Edward Farmer, co-founder of Partners in Health, as he treats patients in Haiti and... Read Mountains Beyond Mountains Summary

Musicophilia is a nonfiction book by Oliver Sacks, a prolific writer and neurologist whose books seek to bridge the gap between scientific and humanistic understandings of the human mind. Sacks compiled his case studies, personal experiences, and relevant neurological research to illuminate the power of Music as a Tool of Adaptation, Resilience, and Healing, to make the case for Music as an Innate Human Characteristic, and to explore The Limits of Knowledge in Musical Neurology... Read Musicophilia Summary

My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies is a 2017 nonfiction book by Resmaa Menakem, an American therapist specializing in body-centered trauma therapy. A New York Times bestseller, the book examines the impact of racism on Black, white, and police bodies in the United States, positing that historical, familial, and personal trauma is stored deep inside the nervous system. The title of the book gestures to its thesis... Read My Grandmother's Hands Summary

My Next Breath: A Memoir (2025) is a memoir by Jeremy Renner recounting a life-altering snowplow accident on New Year’s Day 2023. Renner chronicles his near-fatal accident, the extensive medical treatment that followed, and his methodical approach to physical and psychological rehabilitation. The memoir explores themes of The Importance of Information, Mastering Fear and Taking Action, and The Centrality of Love and Family, presenting recovery not as a return to normalcy but as an opportunity... Read My Next Breath Summary

My Sister’s Keeper is a 2004 novel by bestselling author Jodi Picoult centered on the controversy of savior siblings. In the novel, Anna Fitzgerald fights for medical emancipation in order to have a choice in whether or not she will donate a kidney to her sister, Kate, who has leukemia. In 2009, the novel was adapted into a feature film released by New Line Cinema. The movie was directed by Nick Cassavetes and starred Cameron... Read My Sister's Keeper Summary

My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist’s Personal Journey is a memoir and scientific exploration of stroke and the human brain by neuroscientist Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor. Published in 2008, Taylor’s work is a personal memoir detailing her experience of having a stroke, the following major brain surgery, and her years-long healing process. It is also a scientific and educational resource for people interested in brain function, the causes and consequences of strokes, and the... Read My Stroke of Insight Summary

Diane Chamberlain’s Necessary Lies offers a fictional account of families impacted by the eugenics movement in the mid-20th-century United States. It presents the alternating narratives of Jane Forrester, a budding social worker assigned to impoverished Grace County, North Carolina, and her client, 15-year-old Ivy Hart. Through Jane’s encounters with Grace County’s poverty and its citizens’ lack of control over their lives and futures, she becomes increasingly desperate to prevent Ivy from undergoing forced sterilization at... Read Necessary Lies Summary

No Apparent Distress: A Doctor’s Coming of Age on the Front Lines of American Medicine is author Rachel Pearson’s 2017 account of her intensive medical education and the initial years of her career as a physician. She focuses on stories that illustrate her themes of medical ethics, regret, depression, bias against the poor, and racism. Rather than bogging the reader down in medical jargon, Pearson uses anecdotes to convey her experiences to a layman audience.Pearson... Read No Apparent Distress Summary

No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma and Restoring Wholeness With the Internal Family Systems Model is a psychological self-help book by Richard C. Schwartz, PhD, published in 2021. As the creator of the internal family systems (IFS) model and a practicing therapist with over four decades of experience, Schwartz brings a wealth of knowledge and clinical insight to this text. In No Bad Parts, he blends therapeutic techniques with spiritual concepts, positing that all aspects of... Read No Bad Parts Summary

Florence Nightingale was an English nurse commonly known as the founder of modern nursing practices. Born in Italy, she became an experienced nurse and formed many of her opinions while serving in the Crimean War, enrolling in nursing school at age 24 in Germany. She penned Notes on Nursing: What It Is, and What it Is Not in 1859, just a few years after serving in the war, and the work was first published in... Read Notes on Nursing Summary

“No Witchcraft for Sale” is a short story by Doris Lessing that illustrates the cultural divide and distrust that deepens between a wealthy white family and the native African cook, Gideon, who works for them. First published in 1952, it is one of many stories Lessing wrote that explores the complex relationships between white colonists and Black natives in South and Middle Africa during this time period—a scenario she experienced firsthand when her family lived... Read No Witchcraft for Sale Summary

David L. Rosenhan’s “On Being Sane in Insane Places,” published in the influential journal Science in 1973, stands as a pivotal critique of psychiatric practices. Rosenhan, a psychologist and professor, orchestrated an experiment that would profoundly challenge the legitimacy of established psychiatric diagnoses. Beyond being an academic dissection, Rosenhan’s essay is a journey through the notions of “sanity” and “insanity,” the stigma of mental illness, and the essence of institutions entrusted with mental health care... Read On Being Sane in Insane Places Summary