Biography & autobiography / Medical

Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science

by Atul Gawande

This is a stunningly well-written account of the life of a surgeon: what it is like to cut into people's bodies and the terrifying - literally life and death - decisions that have to be made.There are accounts...

The Reason I Jump: The Inner Voice of a Thirteen-Year-Old Boy with Autism

by Naoki Higashida, Ka Yoshida & David Mitchell

“One of the most remarkable books I’ve ever read. It’s truly moving, eye-opening, incredibly vivid.”—Jon Stewart, The Daily Show

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY

NPR • The Wall Street Journal...

Cambodia Calling: A Memoir from the Frontlines of Humanitarian Aid

by Richard Heinzl

"What’s the matter? A mine? Some kid step on a mine? A blessure?"

"No. Not a mine."

We walk in and there’s a mother standing by her child. It’s a little girl. She’s a very beautiful girl with straight...

Monologues of a Pediatric Surgeon

by Alberto Pena

"Monologues of a Pediatric Surgeon, is an illuminating account of a preeminent pediatric surgeon's perseverance and persistence in challenging dogma. The medical student will be moved to switch from medicine...

The Story of San Michele

by Axel Munthe

The Story of San Michele is the famous memoir by Swedish physician Axel Munthe (1857-1949). Written in English, it has been a best-seller in numerous languages. The author associated with a number of celebrities...

Chocolate & Vicodin: My Quest for Relief from the Headache that Wouldn't Go Away

by Jennette Fulda

The humorous and touching memoir of a woman who’s been seeking relief from a headache for more than two years.

Jennette Fulda was riding high on the success of her first book, Half-Assed: A Weight-Loss Memoir...

Happy

by Alex Lemon

His freshman year of college, Alex Lemon was supposed to be the star catcher on the Macalester College baseball team. He was the boy getting every girl, the hard-partying kid everyone called Happy. In the spring...

Monkey Mind: A Memoir of Anxiety

by Daniel Smith

Daniel Smith’s Monkey Mind is the stunning articulation of what it is like to live with anxiety. As he travels through anxiety’s demonic layers, Smith defangs the disorder with great humor and evocatively...

Doctors: The Biography of Medicine

by Sherwin B. Nuland

How does medical science advance? Popular historians would have us believe that a few heroic individuals, possessing superhuman talents, lead an unselfish quest to better the human condition. But as renowned...

MedHead: My Knock-down, Drag-out, Drugged-up Battle with My Brain

by James Patterson

Cory Friedman woke up one morning when he was five years old with the uncontrollable urge to twitch his neck. From that day forward his life became a hell of irrepressible tics and involuntary utterances, and...

Ask Me Why I Hurt: The Kids Nobody Wants and the Doctor Who Heals Them

by Randy Md Christensen

The unforgettable inspiring memoir of one extraordinary doctor who is saving lives in a most unconventional way Ask Me Why I Hurt is the touching and revealing first-person account of the remarkable work of...

Mom's Marijuana: Life, Love, and Beating the Odds

by Dan Shapiro

A young man battles Hodgkin's disease and survives--with more than a little help from his Mom--in this wry and uplifting memoir about life, love, and beating the odds.

When Dan Shapiro's decidely anti-drug mom...

When A Loved One Falls Ill:

by Gerri Monaghan & Brian Monaghan

The much-needed book for anyone with a loved one facing a serious illness. It is the book that's a bible for how to make the potentially life-or-death decisions that every medical advocate, and every patient,...

Rose Petals: Unshackled From the Stem

by Ebony Angel Rose

"In the dark is where I hide, afraid to show that I'm alive, I can be deep, but take a leap, into dark water where I reside, in the dark where I will hide." With a horrifying introduction of the disturbing dark...

What I Learned When I Almost Died: How a Maniac TV Producer Put Down His BlackBerry and Started to Live His Life

by Chris Licht

What do you learn when your brain goes pop?

Chris Licht had always been ambitious. When he was only nine years old, he tracked down an NBC correspondent while on vacation to solicit advice for a career in television....

Miracles for Joan and Roger

by Joan Esperance

In this delightful book, Australian Joan Esperance reflects back over her life and the lives of her pioneer ancestors. Joan's journey begins in rural Australia and takes the reader on travels including hitchhiking...

An Outback Nurse

by Thea Hayes

The charming story of a young city nurse who found love in the outback.

Walking Free: The extraordinary true story of a young man who fled war-torn Iraq, came to Australia as a refugee by boat, spent months in a detention

by Munjed Al Muderis & Patrick Weaver

One man's phenomenal tale of escaping a death sentence in Iraq, surviving the Australian Refugee system and becoming a pioneering surgeon at the forefront of Orthopaedic medicine.

Lucille Teasdale

by Deborah Cowley

Through 35 years of civil war and epidemics, Canadians Lucille Teasdale and her husband treated diseases such as malaria, TB, and AIDS in northern Uganda.

The Scalpel, the Sword: The Story of Doctor Norman Bethune

by Ted Allan, Julie Allan & Norman Bethune Allan

The Scalpel, the Sword celebrates the turbulent career of Dr. Norman Bethune (18901939), a brilliant surgeon, campaigner for socialized medicine, and communist.