Hello!
I really enjoy medical thrillers and medical-type non-fiction that reads like a story or biography, rather than a textbook.
I’ve read a good deal by Mary Roach, Caitlin Doughty, and Kate Moore, and I think I’m all caught up on my Daniel Kalla, my favourite medical thriller writer.
Looking for additional nonfiction medical/medical history type reads that are more like a story than a textbook? As well as any medical thrillers where I don’t have to leave my science hat at the door — I have a bachelors in Biology/En. Sci and a love of microbiology, immunology, and medical terminology and I’m always delighted when I find books where I can follow along with the concepts.
Bonus points if the author’s Canadian.
(I love this subreddit. Even when just kskimming other topics, I find so many interesting reads! Y’all rock.)
Edit: Thank you all for the recommendations! I’ve put a few on hold at my library, and many many on my “for later” list 😁 I’m delighted!
by Sylvermage
11 Comments
Microbiologist here, with an interest in many scientific fields.
Hot Zone – Richard Preston
Braiding Sweetgrass – Robin Wall Kimmerer
Entangled Life – Merlin Sheldrake
I Contain Multitudes – Ed Young
The Gene – Siddhartha Mukherjee
Emperor of Maladies – same author
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks – Rebecca Skloot
Astrophysics for People in a Hurry – Neil DeGrasse Tyson
The Body – Bill Bryson
I have a bachelor’s in molecular biology! Fellow nerd. Nonfiction:
* The Ghost Map by Steven Johnson
* Big Chicken by Maryn McKenna
* Dark Banquet by Bill Schutt
So I don’t have many suggestions for Non-Fiction that are medical based. However, there is I have enjoyed recently that are non-fiction that follow the medical ordeals of the writers and their recovery.
If I Live Until Morning by Jean Muenchrath
– This is a true story about here survival after a really bad hiking/climbing incident and her long road to recovery.
My favorite fiction book that is medical is:
A Case of Need by Michael Crichton
– This is one that was written under the pen name of Jeffrey Hudson when it was first released and is very different from his other work such as Jurassic Park and The Andromeda Strain
{{When the Air Hits Your Brain: Tales of Neurosurgery
by Frank T. Vertosick Jr.}} – non-fiction
It is an interesting read about the author throughout his training period as a medical student to being a senior resident in neurosurgery.
A couple that I’ve enjoyed:
– A Taste for Poison: Eleven Deadly Molecules and the Killers Who Used Them by Neil Bradbury
– The Icepick Surgeon: Murder, Fraud, Sabotage, Piracy and Other Dastardly Deeds Perpetrated in the Name of Science by Sam Kean
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat,
My Stroke of Insight,
When Breath Becomes Air
Parasite Rex – Carl Zimmer:
Spillover – David Quammen
Ten Drugs – Thomas Hager
The Code Breaker – Walter Isaacson
*Heartsounds* (Martha Weinman Lear, 1980): a beautifully written memoir of the author and her (physician) husband’s experiences with his heart attack and later complications. The medical specifics are obviously outdated, but as a medical professional I found it an excellent story about human responses to medical crises and uncertainty – and valuable for the window into medical history.
*Inside the Outbreaks: The Elite Medical Detectives of the Epidemic Intelligence Service* (Mark Pendergast, 2010) and *Beating Back the Devil: On The Front Lines with the Disease Detectives of the Epidemic Intelligence Service* (Maryn McKenna, 2004). Both vignette-style histories of the EIS, a CDC-associated fellowship program that sends early-career healthcare professionals to disease outbreaks around the US and the world. They’re both pretty engaging reads, fast-paced and with good breadth, although I’d prefer more scientific detail.
*House On Fire: The Fight to Eliminate Smallpox* (William Foege, 2011). Written by one of the key players in the smallpox eradication effort – this is a fascinating memoir and a solid introduction to the massive collaborative effort behind one of humanity’s most important achievements.
*The Hot Zone* (Richard Preston) is… an exciting read, but best taken as a dramatization/fictionalization of real events imo. Definitely prioritizing sensationalism over accurate retelling.
Robin Cook writes medical thrillers – he is a physician and the medical details are generally accurate, although he is a little behind the times in some specifics (he was a practicing ophthalmologist for most of his writing career but his hospital days are loooooong behind him). If you like his writing, there’s plenty of it: 40 books over 50ish years, the most recent published this year.
The Pull of the stars by Emma Donaghue. Tells 3 days in the life of a maternity nurse in 1918 Ireland during the Spanish flu pandemic. Great details but also a fantastic story
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat
Book by Oliver Sacks
I think the first part of Ending Aging by Aubrey de Grey is easy to read. The Open Library page is [here](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL12284524W/Ending_Aging?edition=key%3A/books/OL17932740M).