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Health & Lifestyle » Illness & Medical Conditions

Browse book recommendations:

Health & Lifestyle

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This section covers books on physical illness and medical conditions.  For our extensive range of interviews on mental health, please visit our section on psychology.  Here Arthur Ammann, talks about HIV/Aids and why he prefers “plague” to “epidemic” to describe it.  He chooses his best books on plagues/epidemics and how they affect human societies as well as individuals.

Seth Mnookin, writer, journalist and author of The Panic Virus: the True Story Behind the Vaccine-Autism Controversy chooses his best books on Vaccines and social and medical attitudes to health and illness. Amongst other books he recommends The Ghost Map: the Story of London’s Most Terrifying Epidemic – and how it Changed Science, Cities and the Modern World by Stephen Johnson as a book he often gives to people “to show them how cool and exciting and accessible and gripping stories about scientific discoveries can be.”

David Biro is associate professor of dermatology at SUNY Downstate Medical Centre in New York, and author of One Hundred Days: My Unexpected Journey from Doctor to Patient, the story of his experiences undergoing a marrow transplant.  He chooses his best books on pain and discusses the continuity between physical and psychological pain and the difficulties about writing about pain.  Among is choices are Darkness Visible by William Clark Styron, The Body in Pain by Elaine Scarry and The Book of Job by World Bible Publishing.

    Arthur Ammann recommends the best books on the HIV/Aids Plague

  • Read
    Arthur Ammann recommends the best books on the HIV/Aids Plague - The Plague by Albert Camus

    1

    The Plague
    by Albert Camus

  • Read
    Arthur Ammann recommends the best books on the HIV/Aids Plague - The Coming Plague by Laurie Garrett

    2

    The Coming Plague
    by Laurie Garrett

  • Read
    Arthur Ammann recommends the best books on the HIV/Aids Plague - And the Band Played on by Randy Shilts

    3

    And the Band Played on
    by Randy Shilts

  • Read
    Arthur Ammann recommends the best books on the HIV/Aids Plague - Plagues and Peoples by William McNeill

    4

    Plagues and Peoples
    by William McNeill

  • Read
    Arthur Ammann recommends the best books on the HIV/Aids Plague - The Invisible Cure: Africa, the West and the Fight Against AIDS by Helen Epstein

    5

    The Invisible Cure: Africa, the West and the Fight Against AIDS
    by Helen Epstein

  • Arthur Ammann recommends the best books on the HIV/Aids Plague - The Plague by Albert Camus
  • Arthur Ammann recommends the best books on the HIV/Aids Plague - The Coming Plague by Laurie Garrett
  • Arthur Ammann recommends the best books on the HIV/Aids Plague - And the Band Played on by Randy Shilts
  • Arthur Ammann recommends the best books on the HIV/Aids Plague - Plagues and Peoples by William McNeill
  • Arthur Ammann recommends the best books on the HIV/Aids Plague - The Invisible Cure: Africa, the West and the Fight Against AIDS by Helen Epstein

Arthur Ammann recommends the best books on the HIV/Aids Plague

When dealing with epidemics, science does not have all the answers and relying on a new miracle drug is not always the solution. We must also learn the lessons of history, argues the veteran doctor of the HIV/Aids epidemic, Arthur Ammann. He picks the best books on ‘plagues.’

Arthur Ammann recommends the best books on the HIV/Aids Plague

    The Best Vaccine Books, recommended by Seth Mnookin

  • Read
    The Best Vaccine Books - Polio: An American Story by David Oshinsky

    1

    Polio: An American Story
    by David Oshinsky

  • Read
    The Best Vaccine Books - Vaccine: The Controversial Story of Medicine's Greatest Lifesaver by Arthur Allen

    2

    Vaccine: The Controversial Story of Medicine's Greatest Lifesaver
    by Arthur Allen

  • Read
    The Best Vaccine Books - The Cutter Incident: How America's First Polio Vaccine Led to the Growing Vaccine Crisis by Paul Offit

    3

    The Cutter Incident: How America's First Polio Vaccine Led to the Growing Vaccine Crisis
    by Paul Offit

  • Read
    The Best Vaccine Books - Microbe Hunters by Paul de Kruif

    4

    Microbe Hunters
    by Paul de Kruif

  • Read
    The Best Vaccine Books - The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic by Steven Johnson

    5

    The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic
    by Steven Johnson

  • The Best Vaccine Books - Polio: An American Story by David Oshinsky
  • The Best Vaccine Books - Vaccine: The Controversial Story of Medicine's Greatest Lifesaver by Arthur Allen
  • The Best Vaccine Books - The Cutter Incident: How America's First Polio Vaccine Led to the Growing Vaccine Crisis by Paul Offit
  • The Best Vaccine Books - Microbe Hunters by Paul de Kruif
  • The Best Vaccine Books - The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic by Steven Johnson

The Best Vaccine Books, recommended by Seth Mnookin

The history of vaccines is fascinating, and we highly recommend all the books discussed in this interview with Seth Mnookin, author of The Panic Virus and Professor of Science Writing at MIT. These are gripping reads that tell the story of vaccines, medicine’s greatest life-saver, and the risks people took to find them.

The Best Vaccine Books, recommended by Seth Mnookin

    The best books on Pain, recommended by David Biro

  • Read
    The best books on Pain - Darkness Visible by William Clark Styron

    1

    Darkness Visible
    by William Clark Styron

  • Read
    The best books on Pain - The Body in Pain by Elaine Scarry

    2

    The Body in Pain
    by Elaine Scarry

  • Read
    The best books on Pain - The Book of Job by World Bible Publishing

    3

    The Book of Job
    by World Bible Publishing

  • Read
    The best books on Pain - Perceptions in Pain by Deborah Padfield

    4

    Perceptions in Pain
    by Deborah Padfield

  • Read
    The best books on Pain - The Challenge of Pain by Ronald Melzack and Patrick Wall

    5

    The Challenge of Pain
    by Ronald Melzack and Patrick Wall

  • The best books on Pain - Darkness Visible by William Clark Styron
  • The best books on Pain - The Body in Pain by Elaine Scarry
  • The best books on Pain - The Book of Job by World Bible Publishing
  • The best books on Pain - Perceptions in Pain by Deborah Padfield
  • The best books on Pain - The Challenge of Pain by Ronald Melzack and Patrick Wall

The best books on Pain, recommended by David Biro

The professor of dermatology talks about the ferocious inwardness and aching solitude of pain. Pain destroys language, reducing the sufferer to a pre-linguistic state: to primal screams

The best books on Pain, recommended by David Biro

About

We ask experts to recommend the five best books in their subject and explain their selection in an interview.

This site has an archive of more than one thousand seven hundred interviews, or eight thousand book recommendations. We publish at least two new interviews per week.

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