100 books like In Shock

Deepak Chopra says, “I recommend this book highly to everyone.” Yes, Deepak Chopra, I agree! This is an oldie but oh-so-goodie.

Dr. Rachel Remen is a remarkable woman—a long-term chronic illness survivor, author, and doctor. She believes stories heal, and boy oh boy, she’s chock full of wisdom. This book is a swift and satisfying read, presenting life lessons in a series of brief chapters—different accounts from different patients. Dr. Remen’s winning writing style shines sparkles of truth through every single one.

Suleika Jaouad’s memoir, the most recent travel memoir I’ve read, is about a woman traveling the world alone, though Suleika traveled with her dog, Oscar.

She set off on in a van a 15,000-mile road trip across the country to meet some of the people who had written letters to her during her years in the hospital in treatment for leukemia and a bone marrow transplant.

Like me, Suleika had a dream of being a writer, in her case a war correspondent. The journey she set out on was also one of healing that began with the question: How would she reenter the world and live again. 

She continues to inspire me through her life and her writing as she brings connection, love, and wonder to the world through “Isolation Journals,” which I receive in my inbox regularly.

What if you got hit by lightning? What if the lightning came from inside your body? What if you are such an obsessive writer and researcher that you then had to trace the supply chain of the failed medical device that did that to you?

KS does body writing as a research quest, taking her battered heart back and forth across the Atlantic in pursuit of answers to the question of what, exactly, she’d been carrying around in it. The sense of vulnerability—medical, economic, and otherwise—that she creates within the narrative is so felt that I couldn’t shake it when I was done reading.

Michele Harper’s memoir is beautifully written, and her compassion and empathy shine through.

I was deeply moved by the way in which she carried that clear-eyed compassion forward from a trauma-ridden childhood through her medical training—where she, as a Black woman, experienced both racism and sexism—and into her life as an emergency room physician. I admired her forthrightness in calling out these injustices as she saw and experienced them while still maintaining her own humanity. I was inspired by her integrity and by the way she showed us, through her own life and the lives of her patients, that, as she says in the epilogue, “[b]rokenness can be a remarkable gift.” 

Okay, this one isn't about Consciousness, although it does form a key part of the story. But this is such a beautiful read, especially so for anyone touched by critical illness, that I couldn't not mention it in a list of inspirational books.

This isn't a medical book, as such. It's ultimately about us as people, about compassion and love. It's a journey of exploration and awakening from the stark realization that by employing a standard medical procedure, the young Dr. Ely was actually harming patients and likely killing others.

Compassion just pours off the pages. I'm left haunted by a number of the stories he tells of patients who were done such serious harm, with only the best of intentions, and of his quest to bring a new humanity to critical care medicine. Wonderfully uplifting.

Lamas, an ICU physician in Boston and New York Times guest columnist, has a distinctive gift for rendering the stories of her patients in three dimensions. Lamas is the Oliver Sachs of the ICU, exploring the ethical and emotional challenges of critical illness with eloquence and insight. By focusing on the personal elements of critical care, rather than the technological ones, she renders the complex experience of ICU patients vivid and indelible.   

Although younger readers may enjoy Echo’s newer non-fiction titled Emergency Nurses 24/7 captures the challenges and triumphs of nurses as they enter practice or specialty areas for the first time.  After ten years in the intensive care team, she has intriguing stories to share—which may be why her memoir spent 8 weeks on the New York Times Bestsellers list.

This book invited me to think about how we age and meet death in contemporary Western societies.

I have seen people close to me die. I watched as my grandma, then my grandpa, and then my father passed away. They each, in different ways, faced the brutal realities of growing old and they encountered a healthcare system that ultimately medicalized their death and the aging process–striving to ‘eek out’ more time, as though that was the only honorable thing to do.

Atul Gawande’s book really taught me to reflect critically on that.

This is Taylor’s debut novel and like my book, the time slip element takes us back to World War 1 in 1916. Louisa is admitted to Coldbrook Hall Psychiatric hospital after an accident in which she is believed to have tried to commit suicide. Whilst there she slips back to her days at a hospital treating wounded soldiers and falls in love with Robert Lovett. Not only must she find a way to remain with him, but she must find him when he is taken prisoner on the Western Front. The detailed descriptions of life in the trenches really brought the horrors of WW1 to life. Taylor has researched this area thoroughly and her vivid writing style allows the reader to experience the cold, muddy, and rat-infested conditions for themselves. 

The author’s observations on everyday life during the war add interest and are sometimes surprising, for instance, the fact that… show more.

The prose style in the memoir, Girl, Interrupted, is clean, concise, and unembellished. The spare writing leaves no room for self-pity, yet still tells a vivid story of mental unraveling and convalescence concurrently. Kaysen meets a cast of vulnerable characters during her nearly year-long commitment in a psychiatric hospital. They form unlikely friendships, and we get to know all of their various neuroses in a stifling environment that is at once a cage and a path to self-discovery and health. 

I was reminded of my own two commitments to psychiatric hospitals, how strange and austere the world became in those weeks, how time became irrelevant with the breakfast, lunch and dinner announcements, medication time, nightly bed checks, and the ironic “fresh air breaks,” on the back steps of the ward where I and my own unlikely cast of characters smoked cigarettes and commiserated about our unique predicaments. 

I was… show more.