Books you’ve read where you were impressed by their honest and sensitive depiction of a health condition you were familiar with personally (or through loved ones, coworkers, patients, and so forth)?

Berger laughs. "Listen, what happened this morning was that you let yourself feel some pain. Feeling is not selective, I keep telling you that. You can’t feel pain, you aren't gonna feel anything else, either. And the world is full of pain. Also joy. Evil. Goodness. Horror and love. You name it, it’s there. Sealing yourself off is just going through the motions, get it?

That's part of a conversation between Berger, a psychiatrist, and a young man named Conrad who is struggling with depression and trauma. In fact, his whole family is trying to deal with a terrible event that affected them all. I won't say more, though some of you may know what I'm talking about, if you saw the movie based on the book, which was directed by Robert Redford in 1980.

I won't say more but I felt this novel really got depression and trauma (and their effects on family) right. I have a close friend who was traumatized in his teens and has been going through life through the motions, as the book says. It is painful to see. And I've also dealt with depression personally and seen how it affected my family.

I thought it might be a good idea to ask if you read a book, fictional or not, that seemed to get a health condition or its treatment really right. Whether you have experienced the disease yourself, are a doctor, care for a loved one who has the condition, feel free to share your thoughts.

Thank you.