Why am I passionate about this?

As a woman who suffers from chronic illness, I am interested in sharing my experience and learning about other women who also suffer and survive their chronic conditions. I have had endometriosis, a painful disease, since I was a teenager. I’ve always enjoyed stories about different kinds of chronic illnesses, and I appreciate the way pain and sickness can be translated into memorable books. 


I wrote

Chronic: A Memoir

By Rebecca Dimyan,

Book cover of Chronic: A Memoir

What is my book about?

In this powerful debut, Rebecca Dimyan details her experience with endometriosis, a chronic disease that affects one in ten women…

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The books I picked & why

Book cover of Sick: A Memoir

Rebecca Dimyan Why did I love this book?

Although I may be biased in recommending my former mentor’s book, this memoir about Khakpour’s experience with mysterious illnesses and addictions is a must read.

Written in sharp, often poetic prose, the author offers an intimate portrait of a chronically ill woman of color navigating the frustrating world of doctors, tests, theories, medications, and doubt. The reader is pulled into this dark, gritty story of benzodiazepine abuse, debilitating symptoms, economic hardship, and, ultimately, diagnosis.

I love every book ever written by Khakpour, however, Sick is my absolute favorite (so far!) Not only could I relate to her experience in many ways, I adore her willingness to share all the messy, difficult pieces of her life.

By Porochista Khakpour,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Sick as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A Best Book of the Year: Real Simple, Entropy, Mental Floss, Bitch Media, The Paris Reivew, and LitHub.

Time Magazine's Best Memoirs of 2018 • Boston Globe's 25 Books We Can't Wait to Read in 2018  •  Buzzfeed's 33 Most Exciting New Books  • GQ Best Non Fiction Book of 2018  • Bustle’s 28 Most Anticipated Nonfiction Books of 2018 list  •  Nylon’s 50 Books We Can’t Wait to Read in 2018  • Electric Literature’s 46 Books to Read By Women of Color in 2018 

“Porochista Khakpour’s powerful memoir, Sick, reads like a mystery and a reckoning with a love…


Book cover of Love Sick

Rebecca Dimyan Why did I love this book?

A candid often comical memoir about finding love and coming to terms with illness, Martin doesn’t shy away from the unflattering bits of looking for your soul mate while also dealing with the complications of MS.

Self-deprecating humor, unflinching depictions of award sexual encounters and unfortunate side effects (the chapter "Shit Happens has some quality toilet humor), this book will make you laugh out loud, which, in my opinion, makes this an exceptional memoir about chronic illness.

By Cory Martin,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Love Sick as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

At 28, Cory Martin thought she had it all, a budding career as a writer in Hollywood, an apartment of her own, and a healthy obsession with yoga. But when she found herself on the floor of her apartment wailing into the phone, 'but I don't want to be sick, ' her entire world came crashing down.

A doctor had just revealed that she had Multiple Sclerosis, a potentially debilitating disease, her good friend was getting married that weekend and the only people she wanted to call were her parents. In a time when she was supposed to be coming…


Book cover of Pain Woman Takes Your Keys, and Other Essays from a Nervous System

Rebecca Dimyan Why did I love this book?

Huber is an author and teacher whom I adore, and I am lucky enough to call friend and mentor, but her writing will make everyone fall in love with her.

Heartfelt, lyrical, brutally honest, and funny, this collection of essays will give you new insight into what it means to live in chronic pain. She writes in a way that makes illness and pain itself almost beautiful. If you want poetic writing, a compelling narrative, and an experimental approach to understanding the pain that is an inextricable part of life for some of us, this book is for you.

By Sonya Huber,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Pain Woman Takes Your Keys, and Other Essays from a Nervous System as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Rate your pain on a scale of one to ten. What about on a scale of spicy to citrus? Is it more like a lava lamp or a mosaic? Pain, though a universal element of human experience, is dimly understood and sometimes barely managed. Pain Woman Takes Your Keys, and Other Essays from a Nervous System is a collection of literary and experimental essays about living with chronic pain. Sonya Huber moves away from a linear narrative to step through the doorway into pain itself, into that strange, unbounded reality. Although the essays are personal in nature, this collection is…


Book cover of The Invisible Kingdom: Reimagining Chronic Illness

Rebecca Dimyan Why did I love this book?

O’Rourke blends personal anecdotes, meticulous research, and compelling conviction as she argues that how we treat chronic illness needs to change.

She unpacks the complex nature of autoimmune conditions offering the history of Western Medicine’s approach to illness and even shedding a light on why so many sick people are often left without definitive diagnoses or helpful treatment plans. This is a multi-dimensional portrait of autoimmune disease and chronic illness that I could not put down.

By Meghan O'Rourke,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Invisible Kingdom as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

FINALIST FOR THE 2022 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR NONFICTION

Named one of the BEST BOOKS OF 2022 by NPR, The New Yorker, Time, and Vogue

“Remarkable.” –Andrew Solomon, The New York Times Book Review

"At once a rigorous work of scholarship and a radical act of empathy.”—Esquire

"A ray of light into those isolated cocoons of darkness that, at one time or another, may afflict us all.” —The Wall Street Journal

"Essential."—The Boston Globe

A landmark exploration of one of the most consequential and mysterious issues of our time: the rise of chronic illness and…


Book cover of Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body

Rebecca Dimyan Why did I love this book?

A “best of books about chronic illness list” would not be complete without Gay’s heartbreaking memoir.

The bestselling author delves into chronic overeating, PTSD from a trauma she suffered as a young girl, and a complicated relationship with her overweight body. This book is both devastating and devastatingly beautiful. She explores her history with food as a Haitian-American woman as well as society’s expectations of women and women’s bodies. Gay is a true warrior, and she writes her story with guts.

Trigger Warning: this book contains explicit depictions of sexual violence.

By Roxane Gay,

Why should I read it?

4 authors picked Hunger as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The New York Times Bestseller

National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist

Lambda Literary Award winner

From Roxane Gay, the New York Times bestselling author of Bad Feminist, a memoir in weight about eating healthier, finding a tolerable form of exercise, and exploring what it means to learn, in the middle of your life, how to take care of yourself and how to feed your hunger.

New York Times bestselling author Roxane Gay has written with intimacy and sensitivity about food and bodies, using her own emotional and psychological struggles as a means of exploring our shared anxieties over pleasure, consumption,…


Explore my book 😀

Chronic: A Memoir

By Rebecca Dimyan,

Book cover of Chronic: A Memoir

What is my book about?

In this powerful debut, Rebecca Dimyan details her experience with endometriosis, a chronic disease that affects one in ten women worldwide. This painful condition takes an average of seven years to be diagnosed and has no proven cure.

With honesty, vulnerability, and sometimes humor, Dimyan explores the ways the condition has impacted her experiences, her body, her pain, and her joy. She takes her audience on an emotional journey through her teenage years, early twenties, and into her thirties as she becomes a professional woman, wife, and mother. Dimyan blends research, anecdotes, and advice as she shares the relief she’s found through alternative treatments and holistic medicine.

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Raising an Entrepreneur: How to Help Your Children Achieve Their Dreams - 99 Stories from Families Who Did

By Margot Machol Bisnow,

Book cover of Raising an Entrepreneur: How to Help Your Children Achieve Their Dreams - 99 Stories from Families Who Did

Margot Machol Bisnow Author Of Raising an Entrepreneur: How to Help Your Children Achieve Their Dreams - 99 Stories from Families Who Did

New book alert!

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve become passionate about telling parents how to raise happy, resilient, creative, confident, entrepreneurial children who are doing something that gives them joy. So many young people are unhappy; parents don’t understand how to help. They think their children should follow their path, but that no longer works for many. For the last 10 years, I’ve been speaking to parent groups; I was an Advisor to EQ Generation, an after-school program that gives children the skills to succeed; on the Advisory Board of MUSE School, preparing young people with passion-based learning; and on the Board of Spark the Journey, mentoring low-income high school students to achieve college and career success. 

Margot's book list on learn how to raise confident children

What is my book about?

This book shakes longstanding assumptions of parenting.

Through 99 stories of people who are now changing the world, it shows how to raise creative, confident, resilient children who are filled with joy and purpose. Based on interviews with top entrepreneurs and their parents, it guides you to help your children identify their passion and figure out how they can spend their professional lives doing something they love. 

Parents' well-intentioned efforts often boomerang. By ignoring their children’s skills and interests, parents can inadvertently create pressure and anxiety, thwarting their children's ability to excel and find happiness. Too often, following your heart…

Raising an Entrepreneur: How to Help Your Children Achieve Their Dreams - 99 Stories from Families Who Did

By Margot Machol Bisnow,

What is this book about?

Learn how successful entrepreneurs were raised! Could your children start a company that disrupts existing industries? Or a non-profit that helps people around the world? Or follow their passion as an artist or activist? And most important, lead a life of joy and purpose, to be happy and fulfilled? Margot Machol Bisnow, mother of two thriving entrepreneurs, reveals how to raise creative, confident, resilient, fearless kids who achieve their dreams, through 99 stories of families who did it.

Read stories from 70 families who raised true game changers. See family photos of these thriving entrepreneurs, both when they were young…


5 book lists we think you will like!

Interested in chronic illness, health, and chronic pain?

Chronic Illness 23 books
Health 118 books
Chronic Pain 13 books