Medical Memoir

Medical memoir are a popular subgenre of memoir. These memoirs often explore the psychological aspects of chronic illness. 

Some explore mental illness or neurological disorders like Susannah Cahalan's Brain on Fire and some explore mystery illnesses. For instance, Sarah Ramey's The Lady's Handbook For Her Mysterious Illness explores a woman's attempt to identify her mystery ailment.

For patients suffering similar symptoms, these memoirs can be comforting. Memoirists put into words the same fears and worries that all patients have and, thus, can be powerful. 

Cahalan, Susannah. Brain on Fire.

O'Brien, Meredith. Uncomfortably Numb: A Memoir.

Olstein, Lisa. Pain Studies.

Ramey, Sarah. The Lady's Handbook For Her Mysterious Illness. 

Robinson, John Elder. Look Me In The Eye.

Robinson, John Elder. Switched on: a Memoir of Brain Change. 

A subgenre of graphic novels, graphic medical novels, also deal with medical topics. Personal in nature, these can provide solace as well.

Cornelia Funke's Inkheart Trilogy

The Inkheart Trilogy celebrates the power of readers and writers. So its fitting that Fenoglio who finds himself stuck in Inkworld needs a reader to read him out of his own story. He wishes he could write a different ending.

"I could write one, here and now, and change everything, if only I have someone to read it aloud! Of course he had looked for another Silvertongue but in vain. No Meggie, no Mortimer, not even someone like that man Darius..."

Whenever someone is read into a story, someone or something else is sent out in return. That seems to be the price of the magic spell that works to bring someone out of one world and into the next. When Meggie, Farid and Gwin went into Inkworld, three fire elves came out. 

Fenoglio does not seem to think about the ethics of this; he wants out of Inkworld where the villains he created "ruled...after their own fashion."

Review of Cornelia Funke's Inkheart, the first in the Inkheart Trilogy

Hurry Down Sunshine by Michael Greenberg

This memoir accurately portrays the turmoil and calamity that befalls a family when one of them becomes mentally ill.

Greenberg's fifteen-year-old daughter suddenly becomes mentally ill; she has visions and is struck inexplicably "mad." Most of the events in the memoir occur during the summer of 1996 in Greenwich Village.

Sally briefly stays in mental hospital where she is given drugs that slowly calm her mania. Greenberg ponder other famous depressives, Robert Lowell, for instance, who wrote eloquently about manic illness. 

Winner of the NAMI Ken book award, this work not only describes Sally's illness but also its terrible effects on other family members--the girl's grandmother, mother, stepmother, and brother. 

Get Out of Your Own Way by Dave Hollis

Hollis, Dave. Get out of Your Own Way.

"I suffered from this disease of always having to be right in any conversation and all arguments for most of my life."--Dave Hollis.

Its honesty like that statement that really drew me in and made me want to read this book. A natural skeptic, Hollis describe a long evolution in his thinking. At first, he was opposed to the self-help movement an is now the CEO of the Hollis company, a company that asserts it gives people the tools to make positive, lasting change.

Library Podcasts

The Librarian Is In, NYPL podcast. Hosts, Frank and Rhonda, Hosts discuss current situation (COVID-19) and what they've been reading in the April 23, 2020 episode. Rhonda discusses Freedom Libraries and Frank discusses The Man Who Loved Children.

Your Shelf or Mine, Longview Public Library podcast (Longview, WA). Discusses the current situation (COVID-19) and discusses a library program the adult librarian is giving along with CORE(a small business webinar). They sound like they are working mostly from home and taking turns to go into the library. The Longview Public Library (WA) offers painting classes online at Youtube. The hosts discuss books they have read.

"If I should have a daughter" by Sarah Kay

This is an amazing poem about motherhood, starting over, finding strength in the face of adversity; its also filled with Sarah Kay's trademark humor.

"If I should have a daughter" by Sarah Kay.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQgz2AhHaQg

The World That We Knew by Alice Hoffman

A Jewish mother, Hanni, makes a sacrifice so her daughter may live. She with the help of a rabbi's daughter brings to life a golem, Ava.

This is no ordinary golem in many respects; she is female, she speaks, and she has some feelings. Golems, which are born without a heart or soul, are not supposed to have feelings. 

The story moves back and forth between Ettie, the rabbi's daughter, and Lea, the girl the golem was created to protect. Ettie becomes involved in the Jewish resistance, along with Victor and his brother, Lea's soulmate, Julien.

This unique novel which uses magic realism captures the darkest hour in human history. Demons hide in trees and angels wander the earth. And then there's Ava whose tattoo on her arm reads "truth." She can speak to birds and has the strength of one hundred horsemen.

Ava can peer into the future; she knows what her ultimate fate will be. The truth is that Ava isn't made by God. In a locket given to her by her mother, Lea has instructions on what she must do to the Golem.

The magical elements never detract though from the real story--the horror of the trains, the camps, the senseless killing.

If you want to read more about this book and the inspiration behind it, I recommend this article from the Jewish Women's Archive by Karen Kashian, https://jwa.org/blog/bookclub/interview-alice-hoffman-about-world-we-knew