100 books like The Caregiver's Encyclopedia

By Muriel R. Gillick,

Here are 100 books that The Caregiver's Encyclopedia fans have personally recommended if you like The Caregiver's Encyclopedia. Shepherd is a community of 10,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of A Beginner's Guide to the End: Practical Advice for Living Life and Facing Death

Susannah Fox Author Of Rebel Health: A Field Guide to the Patient-Led Revolution in Medical Care

From my list on defend yourself U.S. health care system.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m not a clinician, but friends often ask for my advice when they get sick or need help caring for a loved one. I’ve spent nearly 25 years mapping the terrain created by innovative patients, survivors, and caregivers, the rebels of medical care. I’m also a caregiver to elders. Along the way, I’ve collected books to loan when someone facing a health challenge asks me, “What do I do now?” Each of these five books was written for when you find yourself in the healthcare maze and need to borrow courage, sharpen your senses, and navigate as best you can.

Susannah's book list on defend yourself U.S. health care system

Susannah Fox Why did Susannah love this book?

My mom and I are competing to see who can give away more copies of this book; we love it that much. Both of us have been bedside caregivers for dying relatives and have seen firsthand how beautiful that process can be if people are prepared.

I love how the book is designed with nice, large print, lovely illustrations, and little snacks of insight sprinkled throughout in boxes and “fast facts.” This book is the essential What to Expect When You’re Expecting–but for death.

By Bj Miller, Shoshana Berger,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked A Beginner's Guide to the End as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

“A gentle, knowledgeable guide to a fate we all share” (The Washington Post): the first and only all-encompassing action plan for the end of life.

“There is nothing wrong with you for dying,” hospice physician B.J. Miller and journalist and caregiver Shoshana Berger write in A Beginner’s Guide to the End. “Our ultimate purpose here isn’t so much to help you die as it is to free up as much life as possible until you do.”

Theirs is a clear-eyed and big-hearted action plan for approaching the end of life, written to help readers feel more in control of an…


Book cover of Aftershock: What to Do When the Doctor Gives You--Or Someone You Love--A Devastating Diagnosis

Susannah Fox Author Of Rebel Health: A Field Guide to the Patient-Led Revolution in Medical Care

From my list on defend yourself U.S. health care system.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m not a clinician, but friends often ask for my advice when they get sick or need help caring for a loved one. I’ve spent nearly 25 years mapping the terrain created by innovative patients, survivors, and caregivers, the rebels of medical care. I’m also a caregiver to elders. Along the way, I’ve collected books to loan when someone facing a health challenge asks me, “What do I do now?” Each of these five books was written for when you find yourself in the healthcare maze and need to borrow courage, sharpen your senses, and navigate as best you can.

Susannah's book list on defend yourself U.S. health care system

Susannah Fox Why did Susannah love this book?

Don’t bring flowers to a newly diagnosed friend, bring this book. The author, a four-time cancer patient, provides the questions we all should ask about diagnosis, treatment options, and getting the care we need from both loved ones and clinicians.

I love the fierceness and “been there” honesty that shines through on every page. Published in 2007, it is still the best handbook I’ve seen for navigating a devastating diagnosis.

By Jessie Gruman,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Every year millions of Americans are diagnosed with cancer, stroke, HIV/AIDS, multiple sclerosis, ALS, and other life-threatening or life-altering diseases. When faced with a devastating diagnosis people must quickly understand the diagnosis, prognosis, and choose from several treatment options-while still in shock. AfterShock identifies the processes required to respond to a serious diagnosis, regardless of the specific disease.

Social psychologist Gruman offers practical advice in a 10-stage approach to making clear-headed, informed decisions about who to tell and when; how to get a second opinion or find the right doctor and hospital; where to find reliable online information and telephone…


Book cover of The Long COVID Survival Guide: Stories and Advice from Twenty Long-Haulers and Experts

Susannah Fox Author Of Rebel Health: A Field Guide to the Patient-Led Revolution in Medical Care

From my list on defend yourself U.S. health care system.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m not a clinician, but friends often ask for my advice when they get sick or need help caring for a loved one. I’ve spent nearly 25 years mapping the terrain created by innovative patients, survivors, and caregivers, the rebels of medical care. I’m also a caregiver to elders. Along the way, I’ve collected books to loan when someone facing a health challenge asks me, “What do I do now?” Each of these five books was written for when you find yourself in the healthcare maze and need to borrow courage, sharpen your senses, and navigate as best you can.

Susannah's book list on defend yourself U.S. health care system

Susannah Fox Why did Susannah love this book?

The COVID-19 virus swept across the world like a hurricane, and 20 survivors of the storm gathered to share the lessons they had learned.

I love how this book centers on the experiences of people living with Long Covid who not only point out the inequities of our health systems but also give practical advice about getting a diagnosis, navigating care, asking for help, and contributing to research.

You don’t have to have Long Covid to benefit. Their wise advice applies to everyone.

By Fiona Lowenstein (editor),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Long COVID Survival Guide as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The first patient-to-patient guide for people living with Long COVID - with expert advice and an afterword by the leading research scientist.

For people living with Long COVID, navigating the uncharted territory of this new chronic illness can be challenging. With over two hundred unique symptoms, and with doctors continuing to work toward a cure, people experiencing Long COVID are often left with more questions than answers.
A support group in book form, The Long COVID Survival Guide is here to help. Twenty contributors - from award-winning journalists, neuroscientists, and patient-researchers to corporate strategists, activists, and artists - share their…


Book cover of Josie's Story: A Mother's Inspiring Crusade to Make Medical Care Safe

Susannah Fox Author Of Rebel Health: A Field Guide to the Patient-Led Revolution in Medical Care

From my list on defend yourself U.S. health care system.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m not a clinician, but friends often ask for my advice when they get sick or need help caring for a loved one. I’ve spent nearly 25 years mapping the terrain created by innovative patients, survivors, and caregivers, the rebels of medical care. I’m also a caregiver to elders. Along the way, I’ve collected books to loan when someone facing a health challenge asks me, “What do I do now?” Each of these five books was written for when you find yourself in the healthcare maze and need to borrow courage, sharpen your senses, and navigate as best you can.

Susannah's book list on defend yourself U.S. health care system

Susannah Fox Why did Susannah love this book?

Speak up. Ask questions. Be the squeaky wheel. Your life or the life of someone you love may depend on it. That’s the message of Josie’s Story. I could not put this book down even as I had to steel myself to turn the page sometimes, knowing that a tragedy caused by a medical error was at the heart of it.

Grief, the unreleased love for a child, compelled the author to demand–and accomplish–systemic change that has saved lives. Read it, weep, and know that you, too, have the power to shift the axis of medical care.

By Sorrel King,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Josie's Story as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Ninety-eight thousand people die every year from medical errors, making it a leading cause of death in the United States, but the subject has long been taboo. All that changed with Josie. Sorrel King's eighteen-month-old daughter was badly burned by a faulty water heater in the family's new home, but was taken to the world-renowned Johns Hopkins Hospital, where she made a remarkable recovery. But as she was preparing to leave, the hospital's system of communication broke down and Josie was given a fatal shot of methadone, sending her into cardiac arrest. Within forty-eight hours, the King family went from…


Book cover of Setting Limits: Medical Goals in an Aging Society with "A Response to My Critics"

Raphael Cohen-Almagor Author Of The Right to Die with Dignity: An Argument in Ethics, Medicine, and Law

From my list on medical ethics and end-of-life.

Why am I passionate about this?

Raphael Cohen-Almagor, DPhil, St. Catherine’s College, University of Oxford, is Professor of Politics, Olof Palme Visiting Professor, Lund University, Founding Director of the Middle East Study Centre, University of Hull, and Global Fellow, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Raphael taught, inter alia, at Oxford (UK), Jerusalem, Haifa (Israel), UCLA, Johns Hopkins (USA), and Nirma University (India). With more than 300 publications, Raphael has published extensively in the field of political philosophy, including Liberal Democracy and the Limits of Tolerance; Challenges to Democracy; The Right to Die with Dignity; The Scope of Tolerance; Confronting the Internet's Dark Side; Just, Reasonable Multiculturalism, and The Republic, Secularism and Security: France versus the Burqa and the Niqab.

Raphael's book list on medical ethics and end-of-life

Raphael Cohen-Almagor Why did Raphael love this book?

Like Pellegrino, Daniel (Dan) Callahan is also one of the forefathers of the field of medical ethics. 

A prolific author, Dan published 47 books and some 800 articles and blogs. Dan is also the co-founder of the Hastings Center in New York, one of the leading research centers on medical ethics in the world. In many ways, his vision established medical ethics as a legitimate field of studies.

In Setting Limits, Callahan suggests the concept of a “full biographical life span,” meaning the point at which it can be said that a person has lived a complete, fulfilling, whole life. He does not determine a specific age but suggests a range — late seventies, early eighties, which in his opinion is equivalent to a natural, complete life cycle. 

Callahan claims that today medical technology can extend life beyond the point that he believes is sensible and worthwhile. He deliberates…

By Daniel Callahan,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

This is a provocative call to rethink America's values in health care.


Book cover of Ageless Erotica

Carolyn Lee Arnold Author Of Fifty First Dates After Fifty: A Memoir

From my list on that model older women unabashedly enjoying sex.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve been a very sexual woman since my twenties, and provided sex education for women as a young feminist. When I embarked on a fun dating project in my late fifties to date 50 men in order to find the right partner for me, I knew that many of my dates would include sexual encounters. My upbeat memoir about that project, Fifty First Dates After Fifty, includes the sex scenes, because I wanted to provide healthy, satisfying images of older women enjoying sex so that our sexuality would be validated and visible to each other and the world. The sex-positive books I recommend celebrate the variety of women’s sexuality.

Carolyn's book list on that model older women unabashedly enjoying sex

Carolyn Lee Arnold Why did Carolyn love this book?

I recommend this hot and sexy collection of erotic fiction and memoir because for me it doubles as a source of arousal and a mesmerizing glimpse of the range of sexual activities that seniors (mostly hetero, some lesbians, some gay men) imagine and carry out.

From the slow sex of long-term lovers, to hand jobs offered despite arthritic hands or carpel tunnel, to the variety of ways married couples orchestrate hot love-making, to the pleasure of “in-the-meantime” lovers, these stories sizzle and burn. They expand our view of what is sexually possible as we age, and provide an inspiring and stimulating bedside reference for singles and couples of all ages.

To be savored one story at a time, not gulped down as a whole. 

By Joan Price (editor),

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Ageless Erotica is a steamy anthology of erotic stories and memoir essays written for a mature audience by writers over the age of 50. Edited by senior sex expert and advocate Joan Price, this collection is full of erotica seniors can relate to,embracing the agelessness of sexuality while still encompassing the changes that accompany aging. Some selections are tender and loving, while others are edgy and kinky. But whether characters are going solo, having spicy sex with partners they love and have loved for decades, or engaging in casual encounters, every story included in these pages aims to arouse and…


Book cover of Angle of Repose

Connie Kronlokken Author Of So Are You to My Thoughts

From my list on deepening your understanding of California history.

Why am I passionate about this?

As a transplant to California, albeit more than 50 years ago, I am still fascinated by what makes this place at the edge of the Pacific so unique. It has accepted so many people, from so many places over a fairly recent period. I always feel I can deduce more history from well rendered characters set in specific times and places. Their wholeness and their meaning, as well as that of their culture, are to be found in literature.

Connie's book list on deepening your understanding of California history

Connie Kronlokken Why did Connie love this book?

Susan Ward joins her husband, a mining engineer, at a mercury mine near San Jose, California, coming west from New York.

She is an illustrator and writer and, as her grandson tells it, never completely adjusts to life in the West. We get much description of California, however, in the layered times in which her story is told. She and her husband settle in Grass Valley, where her husband works for quartz and gold mines.

Wallace Stegner’s use of Mary Hallock Foote’s memoir and diaries as the basis for this story is still controversial. Foote lived from 1847 to 1938 and wrote beautifully, illuminating life during this time. The controversy makes the story even more intriguing.

By Wallace Stegner,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

The novel tells the story of Lyman Ward, a retired professor of history and author of books about the Western frontier, who returns to his ancestral home in the Sierra Nevada. Wheelchair-bound with a crippling bone disease, Ward embarks nonetheless on a search to rediscover his grandmother, no long dead, who made her own journey to Grass Valley nearly a hundred years earlier.


Book cover of Aging and the Indian Diaspora: Cosmopolitan Families in India and Abroad

Michele Ruth Gamburd Author Of Linked Lives: Elder Care, Migration, and Kinship in Sri Lanka

From my list on migration and aging.

Why am I passionate about this?

My mom was an anthropologist, and when I was two, she took me to Sri Lanka, the island off the tip of India. After years of insisting that I wanted nothing to do with any social science, let alone anthropology, I ended up in graduate school studying… anthropology. Long story. Having taken up the family mantel, I returned to the village where I lived as a child and asked what had changed in the intervening years. Since then, my Sri Lankan interlocutors have suggested book topics that include labor migration, the use and abuse of alcohol, the aftermath of the Indian Ocean Tsunami, and the challenges of aging. 

Michele's book list on migration and aging

Michele Ruth Gamburd Why did Michele love this book?

This ethnographic work delves into the lives of elders in Calcutta, India, including those who age in place with family nearby, those whose children have migrated abroad, and those who follow their family members to the US. I particularly love the way the author roots the work in traditional South Asian concepts of age and family relationships while dealing simultaneously with social changes such as India’s urbanization and economic liberalization, the out-migration of skilled tech workers, and the introduction of old folks’ homes in urban areas. The sensitive portrayal of life histories made me both laugh and cry. 

By Sarah E. Lamb (editor),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Aging and the Indian Diaspora as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The proliferation of old age homes and increasing numbers of elderly living alone are startling new phenomena in India. These trends are related to extensive overseas migration and the transnational dispersal of families. In this moving and insightful account, Sarah Lamb shows that older persons are innovative agents in the processes of social-cultural change. Lamb's study probes debates and cultural assumptions in both India and the United States regarding how best to age; the proper social-moral relationship among individuals, genders, families, the market, and the state; and ways of finding meaning in the human life course.


Book cover of A Life Complete: Emotional and Spiritual Growth for Midlife and Beyond

Barbara Coombs Lee Author Of Finish Strong: Putting Your Priorities First at Life's End

From my list on opening to death to live your most joyful life.

Why am I passionate about this?

I first started tending patients at age 15, as a candy striper at St. Joseph Hospital. That was a long time ago, and since then I’ve learned much at patients’ bedsides, in Congress, statehouses and courtrooms. Through sequential careers in nursing, medicine, law, and advocacy, I learned that end-of-life experiences have the most to teach us about being truly present to our lives, about learning to love well and growing in wisdom. Personal autonomy, individual empowerment, and guided planning are all key to moving past our fear of death. In the end, as Seneca observed, “The art of living well and dying well are one.”

Barbara's book list on opening to death to live your most joyful life

Barbara Coombs Lee Why did Barbara love this book?

As Sallirae ministered to the elderly in an upscale continuing care community, she wondered how some residents aged into a graceful presence that attracted people to them, while others drove people away with their grumpy discontentedness. Some remained curious and engaged in life, but others shrank in interest and spirit. She studied her subjects and their histories closely and rewarded readers with practical tips to adopt in middle age to prevent us from poisoning our later years with grief and regret. What exactly can we do now to live our old age in joy and contentment? Sallirae died in 2007 at age 66, too young to reap the wise and graceful old age she bequeathed to the rest of us. I hold her memory in gratitude as I myself grow old. 

By Sallirae Henderson,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

A minister and counselor takes on middle age and aging in this insightful book, guiding readers through this bittersweet but necessary life passage while exploring the choices that we face. Reprint. 10,000 first printing.


Book cover of The Leisure Seeker

Vered Neta Author Of Things We Do For Love

From my list on the light side of Alzheimer’s.

Why am I passionate about this?

Like the Bach sisters in my novel Things We Do For Love, my sisters and I have cared for our mother, who battles Alzheimer's. Witnessing her transformation from a vibrant powerhouse to someone resembling the Walking Dead has been heart-wrenching. Despite the emotional rollercoaster, this journey has deeply connected us with our mother. Delving into the depths of her being has been a privilege, offering profound insights into her true essence. This challenging experience has unfolded as a disguised blessing. In this journey, we've discovered the beauty of unconditional love that binds our family together. It reflects the central question of my novel: What truly makes a happy family?

Vered's book list on the light side of Alzheimer’s

Vered Neta Why did Vered love this book?

The moment I started reading this book, its tone gripped me instantly.

It fearlessly presents challenging and daunting situations with a mix of wit and courage. Darkly observant, the story unfolds with a blend of humour, fondness, and a hint of irony, making "The Leisure Seeker" a bittersweet fable of the golden years.

The book fearlessly confronts the realities and indignities of aging and disease, yet it doesn't fail to celebrate life, embracing every precious moment left in the lives of the characters, even if they are old geezers.

While the subject matter could lead to a somber narrative, the book takes an unexpected turn, becoming a genuinely life-affirming and highly entertaining tale, defying the omnipresent shadow of mortality.

By Michael Zadoorian,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The Leisure Seeker as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This is the unforgettable cross country journey of a runaway couple in their twilight years determined to meet the end of all roads on their own terms. "The Leisure Seeker" is the story of John and Ella Robina, a couple married 50+ years - she has stopped her cancer treatments, he has Alzheimer's - who kidnap themselves from the adult children and the doctors who seem to run their lives, and steal off on a forbidden vacation. Each battling their own infirmities, John pilots their '78 Leisure Seeker RV (it's the one with the left turn signal blinking) along the…


5 book lists we think you will like!

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