Love Intoxicated by My Illness? Readers share 100 books like Intoxicated by My Illness...

By Anatole Broyard,

Here are 100 books that Intoxicated by My Illness fans have personally recommended if you like Intoxicated by My Illness. Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

When you buy books, we may earn a commission that helps keep our lights on (or join the rebellion as a member).

Book cover of A Matter of Death and Life

Helen Epstein Author Of Getting Through It: My Year of Cancer during Covid

From my list on getting through cancer treatment.

Why am I passionate about this?

I'm a long-time journalist, wife, mother, and grandmother, who was diagnosed with GYN cancer at the beginning of the Covid pandemic in the spring of 2020. My usual subjects are the arts and trauma, but since Iā€™m now one of the more than 600,000 American women with GYN cancer, I decided to write this report about my year of treatment. 

Helen's book list on getting through cancer treatment

Helen Epstein Why did Helen love this book?

A Matter of Life and Death is a deeply personal double memoir, written in alternating chapters by a long-married couple in their late 80s. Irvin Yalom is a psychiatrist and well-respected novelist; Marilyn Yalom, diagnosed with multiple myeloma in 2019, was a professor of literature and women's studies. Emotionally intelligent and unusually articulate, the couple was married for 65 years. Though plodding at times, they document in detail the last year of Marilyn's life, from diagnosis to experimental treatment to hospice to physician-assisted death. It is written as a testament as well as a guide.

By Marilyn Yalom, Irvin D. Yalom,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked A Matter of Death and Life as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A year-long journey by the renowned psychiatrist and his writer wife after her terminal diagnosis, as they reflect on how to love and live without regret.

Internationally acclaimed psychiatrist and author Irvin Yalom devoted his career to counseling those suffering from anxiety and grief. But never had he faced the need to counsel himself until his wife, esteemed feminist author Marilyn Yalom, was diagnosed with cancer. In A Matter of Death and Life, Marilyn and Irv share how they took on profound new struggles: Marilyn to die a good death, Irv to live on without her.

In alternating accounts ofā€¦


Book cover of Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted

Diane Vogel Ferri Author Of No Life But This: A Novel of Emily Warren Roebling

From my list on strong, persistent women.

Why am I passionate about this?

I grew up in an era of feminism but did not necessarily see opportunities outside of the traditional female roles. I became a teacher, mother, and now grandmother, and I am more passionate than ever about the challenges of being a woman, especially in this strident time in America. I think it is imperative that women stand up for themselves and fulfill the dreams that some of our ancestors were not able to achieve. We should never move backward in terms of allowing all citizens to strive toward their pursuit of happiness. Consequently, I have gravitated towards books with strong women protagonists in my reading selections. 

Diane's book list on strong, persistent women

Diane Vogel Ferri Why did Diane love this book?

If there ever lived a strong, persistent woman, it is Jaouad. This is Jaouadā€™s memoir of fighting and surviving leukemia at age 22. I came to love her as a person as she suffered the broken dreams of her youth and her future.

The insightful writing is from her unique perspective as a young woman who speaks multiple languages and is raised in several countries, including the United States. In her post-treatment year, she completes a road trip around the United States, which brings more revelations.

By Suleika Jaouad,

Why should I read it?

10 authors picked Between Two Kingdoms as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER ā€¢ A searing, deeply moving memoir of illness and recovery that traces one young womanā€™s journey from diagnosis to remission to re-entry into ā€œnormalā€ lifeā€”from the author of the Life, Interrupted column in The New York Times

ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, Bloomberg, The Rumpus, She Reads, Library Journal, Booklist ā€¢ ā€œI was immersed for the whole ride and would follow Jaouad anywhere. . . . Her writing restores the moon, lights the way as we learn to endure the unknown.ā€ā€”Chanel Miller, The Newā€¦


Book cover of Unexpected Lessons in Love

Helen Epstein Author Of Getting Through It: My Year of Cancer during Covid

From my list on getting through cancer treatment.

Why am I passionate about this?

I'm a long-time journalist, wife, mother, and grandmother, who was diagnosed with GYN cancer at the beginning of the Covid pandemic in the spring of 2020. My usual subjects are the arts and trauma, but since Iā€™m now one of the more than 600,000 American women with GYN cancer, I decided to write this report about my year of treatment. 

Helen's book list on getting through cancer treatment

Helen Epstein Why did Helen love this book?

Unexpected Lessons in Love broke new ground by discussing anal cancer and a colostomy in this autobiographical novel. A former schoolteacher and psychotherapist, she brought long-honed skills of observation and analysis to her compelling and highly readable story, which features mental illness, nuns, a kidnapped journalist, and many complicated family dynamics as well as a mother, wife, and grandmother facing terminal cancer. 

By Bernardine Bishop,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Shortlisted for the 2013 Costa Novel Award

Cecilia Banks has a great deal on her plate. But when her son Ian turns up on her doostep with the unexpected consequence of a brief fling, she feels she has no choice but to take the baby into her life. Cephas's arrival is the latest of many challenges Cecilia has to face. There is the matter of her cancer, for a start, an illness shared with her novelist friend Helen. Then there is Helen herself, whose observations of Cecilia's family life reveal a somewhat ambivalent attitude to motherhood. Meanwhile Tim, Cecilia's husband,ā€¦


If you love Intoxicated by My Illness...

Ad

Book cover of Tap Dancing on Everest: A Young Doctor's Unlikely Adventure

Tap Dancing on Everest by Mimi Zieman,

Tap Dancing on Everest, part coming-of-age memoir, part true-survival adventure story, is about a young medical student, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor raised in N.Y.C., who battles self-doubt to serve as the doctorā€”and only womanā€”on a remote Everest climb in Tibet.

The team attempts a new route upā€¦

Book cover of Memoir of a Debulked Woman: Enduring Ovarian Cancer

Helen Epstein Author Of Getting Through It: My Year of Cancer during Covid

From my list on getting through cancer treatment.

Why am I passionate about this?

I'm a long-time journalist, wife, mother, and grandmother, who was diagnosed with GYN cancer at the beginning of the Covid pandemic in the spring of 2020. My usual subjects are the arts and trauma, but since Iā€™m now one of the more than 600,000 American women with GYN cancer, I decided to write this report about my year of treatment. 

Helen's book list on getting through cancer treatment

Helen Epstein Why did Helen love this book?

This is a scholarly memoir by a co-author of The Madwoman in the Attic, the feminist literary classic, and a professor of English and womenā€™s studies at Indiana University. She was diagnosed with late-stage ovarian cancer in 2008, then a virtual death sentence. Gubar describes several stages of treatment including "debulking" and chemotherapy and the importance of a loving support system. The writing is sober, well-documented, comprehensive, and, though published ten years ago, all too relevant.

By Susan Gubar,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Memoir of a Debulked Woman as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2008, Susan Gubar underwent radical debulking surgery, an attempt to excise the cancer by removing part or all of many organs in the lower abdomen. Her memoir mines the deepest levels of anguish and devotion as she struggles to come to terms with her body's betrayal and the frightful protocols of contemporary medicine. She finds solace in the abiding love of her husband, children, and friends while she searches for understanding in works of literature, visual art, and the testimonies of others who suffer with various forms of cancer.

Ovarian cancer remains an incurable diseaseā€¦


Book cover of At the Will of the Body: Reflections on Illness

Ed Cohen Author Of On Learning to Heal: or, What Medicine Doesn't Know

From my list on learning to heal.

Why am I passionate about this?

I earned a Ph.D. in Modern Thought from Stanford and have been an award-winning professor of Womenā€™s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies for over three decades. I've also lived with Crohnā€™s Disease for more than 50 years. At the intersection of these two experiences, I developed a therapeutic practice oriented towards those with chronic and life-threatening illnesses called Healing Counsel. As both a teacher and a counsellor, I ask people to reconsider the ways they make sense of their experiences. I try to assist people to open up new possibilities for healing, not only as individuals, but also as societies, maybe even as a species, or perhaps even as planetary beings.

Ed's book list on learning to heal

Ed Cohen Why did Ed love this book?

This classic text by medical sociologist Arthur Frank was written in the wake of two life-threatening events: a heart attack at age 39 and a cancer diagnosis a year later. 

Frank draws on both his scholarly and personal experiences to guide others who find themselves in similar circumstances. He helps us understand that when we place ourselves in medicineā€™s hands, we also subject ourselves to their ways of knowing. Their stories bleed into our stories, but they are never the same as our stories because what medicine knows as disease is not the same as what we experience as illness. 

Thus, Frank teaches us: ā€œThese two stories, the story of medicine taking the body as its territory and the story of learning to wonder at the body itself, can only be told together, because illness is both stories at once.ā€

By Arthur W Frank,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked At the Will of the Body as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A medical sociologist who has been seriously ill twice (heart attack and cancer) explores his experiences and examines what they taught him about how to live. An important resource for caregivers and patients.

In this deeply affecting memoir, Arthur W. Frank explores the events of illness from within: the transformation from person to patient, the pain, the wonder, and the ceremony of recovery.

To illuminate what illness can teach us about life, Frank draws upon his own encounters with serious illnessā€”a heart attack at age thirty-nine and, a year later, a diagnosis of cancer.

In poignant and clear prose, heā€¦


Book cover of Dancing at the Pity Party

Haley Weaver Author Of Give Me Space but Don't Go Far: My Unlikely Friendship with Anxiety

From my list on graphic memoirs to make you feel seen.

Why am I passionate about this?

As a child, I was always drawn to stories told through both words and illustrations. Why should that have to end in adulthood? Spoiler: it doesnā€™t, because there are SO many incredible graphic memoirs and novels written with adult audiences in mind. As a graphic memoirist myself, I love to see how other artists explore the form. I share recommendations in this genre every month in my newsletter, Haley Wrote This

Haley's book list on graphic memoirs to make you feel seen

Haley Weaver Why did Haley love this book?

It wasnā€™t until this book that I encountered such a sweet, heartbreaking, and colorful retelling of grief. This book has become my blueprint for how to both navigate my own experiences with loss and care for friends in grieving; Feder so perfectly lays out whatā€™s helpful and whatā€™s not.

I also appreciate how the illustrations preserve the beauty of Federā€™s connection to her mom (in which I saw a lot of similarities to my own mother-daughter relationship!). I gave this book to my friend, who is a school counselor, to keep in their office for students going through grief, too. 

By Tyler Feder,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Dancing at the Pity Party as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 12, 13, 14, and 15.

What is this book about?

This acclaimed graphic memoir that Kirkus calls ā€œcathartic and upliftingā€ is the tale of losing a parent and what it feels like to grieve and to move forward.

ā€œI canā€™t recommend this kind, funny, and poignant memoir enough. Itā€™s an intimate, life-affirming story of resilience that feels like a good friend.ā€ ā€”Mari Andrew, author of Am I There Yet?

Tyler Feder had just white-knuckled her way through her first year of college when her super cool mom was diagnosed with late-stage cancer. Now, with a decade of grief and nervous laughter under her belt, Tyler shares the story of thatā€¦


If you love Anatole Broyard...

Ad

Book cover of American Daredevil: Comics, Communism, and the Battles of Lev Gleason

American Daredevil by Brett Dakin,

Meet Lev Gleason, a real-life comics superhero! Gleason was a titan among Golden Age comics publishers who fought back against the censorship campaigns and paranoia of the Red Scare. After dropping out of Harvard to fight in World War I in France, Gleason moved to New York City and eventuallyā€¦

Book cover of Beating Cancer with Nutrition

Ginny Dent Brant Author Of Unleash Your God-Given Healing: Eight Steps to Prevent and Survive Cancer

From my list on showing you how to help prevent and survive cancer.

Why am I passionate about this?

Unleash Your God-Given Healing is the book I never wanted to write. As an educator and trained researcher, I uncovered some of the reasons I got a cancer I had no risk factors or genetics for. I also discovered what I could do to help my doctors to beat my cancer and prevent a recurrence. After surgeries and then chemo and immunotherapy for a year, my cancer was gone. My doctors called me their ā€œRock Starā€ cancer patient and attributed my lifestyle changes as to why I fared well and returned quickly to vibrant health. I realized that what I learned could help many people. The treasures I learned are in this book. 

Ginny's book list on showing you how to help prevent and survive cancer

Ginny Dent Brant Why did Ginny love this book?

This book was one of the first books I read when researching what I could do to help my doctors to beat my cancer. Dr. Quillin is one of the top experts in beating cancer with nutrition both for the patient undergoing treatments and for the patient using holistic methods. This book gives valuable information and insight into how diet can both prevent and heal cancer. Powerful.

By Patrick Quillin,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Beating Cancer with Nutrition as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Cancer has escalated from a once obscure disease to a leading cause of death worldwide. Chemo, radiation, and surgery can reduce tumor burden but do nothing to change the underlying causes of cancer. Enter the need for this book. Using evidence-based guidelines, this book gives you a simple diet and supplement program to augment your doctor's best care while undergoing cancer treatment. This book shows the reader how nutrition can augment immune functions, make chemo and radiation more of a selective toxin against the cancer but not the patient, reverse or prevent the common malnutrition, starve the sugar feeding cancer,ā€¦


Book cover of Intuition

Pippa Goldschmidt Author Of Schrƶdinger's Wife (and Other Possibilities)

From my list on women doing science.

Why am I passionate about this?

Science is still assumed to be a ā€˜maleā€™ subject in which women are a minority. I should knowā€”I was one of those women when I worked as an astrophysicist. But there have always been women in science and their stories are fascinating, whether told in nonfiction or in fiction. Fiction is ideally placed to convey the emotions behind the scientific processes and the way in which human interactions and relationships influence what happens in the lab.

Pippa's book list on women doing science

Pippa Goldschmidt Why did Pippa love this book?

In a cancer research lab, a young scientist thinks he might have found a cure for cancer. But his colleague, who just happens to be his ex-girlfriend, is convinced there are flaws in his work.

I loved the way this novel evokes the reality of scientistsā€™ lab work and their struggles to try and determine what is ā€˜reallyā€™ going on. Too often, science is presented in the media as a straightforward yes-no/right-wrong pursuit, whereas in reality, itā€™s messy and full of dead ends. This novel portrays scientists as human beings who bring their own passions and prejudices into the lab, which struck me as all too relatable.

By Allegra Goodman,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Intuition as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 16, and 17.

What is this book about?

Sandy Glass is a charismatic publicity-seeking doctor. Marion Mendelssohn is an idealistic and rigorous scientist. They are co-directors of a cancer research lab in Boston. As mentors and supervisors to their young proteges, they demand dedication and respect in a competitive environment where funding is scarce and results elusive. So when the experiments of Cliff Bannaker, the youngest members of their team, begin to produce encouraging results, suggesting the very real possibility of a major breakthrough, the entire lab becomes giddy with newfound expectation.

But jealousy soon breeds suspicion and Cliff's colleague - and girlfriend - Robin Decker begins toā€¦


Book cover of Keto for Cancer: Ketogenic Metabolic Therapy as a Targeted Nutritional Strategy

Mary T. Newport Author Of Clearly Keto: For Healthy Brain Aging and Alzheimer's Prevention

From my list on healthier aging of body and brain through diet and lifestyle changes (by a doctor).

Why am I passionate about this?

At just fifty-four, my husband Steve was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimerā€™s disease in 2004. After practicing as a physician specializing in newborn intensive care for thirty years, I found myself at the opposite end of the spectrum, learning everything I could about Alzheimerā€™s. In 2008, Steve had a dramatic improvement in his symptoms lasting nearly four years from consuming ketogenic coconut oil and MCT oil, a low-carb whole food diet, and later a ketone ester developed at the NIH. I knew that if Steve improved many others would as well, and have been compelled to share this information by speaking and writing about ketones as an alternative fuel for the brain.

Mary's book list on healthier aging of body and brain through diet and lifestyle changes (by a doctor)

Mary T. Newport Why did Mary love this book?

The author of Keto for Cancer, Miriam Kalamian, became a nutritionist specializing in the ketogenic diet when her young son developed brain cancer, and, through her perseverance, he lived years beyond expectations.

Most people donā€™t realize that there is a connection between diet and cancer. Kalamian explains that many types of cancer cells love sugar, and depriving these cells of sugar by eating a ketogenic diet can slow cancer growth. Many clinical trials of the keto diet combined with standard treatment are in progress for various types of cancer. Kalamian explains the rationale and how to put this strict version of the keto diet into action.

I found the book to be very complete, highly informative, and easy to understand. 

By Miriam Kalamian,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

"Keto for Cancer brings clarity to this emerging science and makes implementation of this information straightforward and uncomplicated."-David Perlmutter, New York Times bestselling author

"This book addresses every question or concern that cancer patients might have in using a ketogenic metabolic strategy for managing their cancer."-Thomas Seyfried ,PhD

THE comprehensive guide for patients and practitioners from a foremost authority in the emerging field of metabolic therapies for cancer.

Although evidence supporting the benefits of ketogenic diet therapies continues to mount, there is little to guide those who wish to adopt this diet as a metabolic therapy for cancer. Keto forā€¦


If you love Intoxicated by My Illness...

Ad

Book cover of Geri o Shimasu

Geri o Shimasu by Alia Luria,

Geri o Shimasu: Adventures of a Baka Gaijin invites readers on a witty, unfiltered romp through 2008 Japan as experienced by Alia Luria, a self-proclaimed "clueless foreigner." Luria dives headfirst into the quirks and challenges of Japanese culture, from decoding onsen etiquette and enduring public embarrassment to exploring the odditiesā€¦

Book cover of Chasing My Cure: A Doctor's Race to Turn Hope Into Action; A Memoir

Devesh Dahale Author Of The 5000th Baby: A Parent's Perspective and Journey through the First Year of Life

From my list on patient/family experience in healthcare.

Why am I passionate about this?

Life caught me by surprise when our youngest son was born with a birth defect that launched our family into the world of surgeries, and treatments. After experiencing the management of chronic care for our child firsthand, I realized how important it is to share personal stories and experiences. It enables empathy and a deeper understanding and appreciation of what patients and families go through. Autobiographical accounts of patients and families are still very limited. We need more people to come forward and share their own patient/family experiences in order to promote the betterment of healthcare and healing through relating with others and learning from othersā€™ experiences.


Devesh's book list on patient/family experience in healthcare

Devesh Dahale Why did Devesh love this book?

Imagine being a medical school student in the best of health and full of spirit and ambition, and suddenly being engulfed by a strange and mysterious illness that even the best of doctors in the most renowned hospitals are unable to appropriately diagnose, let alone treat. This chilling story of a doctor who literally chases his own cure is a great example of the much-needed patient advocacy that may often be required to diagnose and treat rare and complex conditions effectively. The authorā€™s passion for finding the underlying cause of his disease (Castlemanā€™s disease) and experimenting with innovative unlikely combinations of drug therapies makes his story memorable and truly inspiring.

By David Fajgenbaum,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

LOS ANGELES TIMES AND PUBLISHERS WEEKLY BESTSELLER ā€¢ The powerful memoir of a young doctor and former college athlete diagnosed with a rare disease who spearheaded the search for a cureā€”and became a champion for a new approach to medical research.

ā€œA wonderful and moving chronicle of a doctorā€™s relentless pursuit, this book serves both patients and physicians in demystifying the science that lies behind medicine.ā€ā€”Siddhartha Mukherjee, New York Times bestselling author of The Emperor of All Maladies and The Gene

David Fajgenbaum, a former Georgetown quarterback, was nicknamed the Beast in medical school, where he was also known forā€¦


Book cover of A Matter of Death and Life
Book cover of Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted
Book cover of Unexpected Lessons in Love

Share your top 3 reads of 2024!

And get a beautiful page showing off your 3 favorite reads.

2,005

readers submitted
so far, will you?

5 book lists we think you will like!

Interested in cancer, Los Angeles, and Baltimore?

Cancer 124 books
Los Angeles 366 books
Baltimore 37 books