Books like Oxygen by Carol Wiley Cassella

Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor black tobacco farmer whose cells—taken without her knowledge in 1951—became one of the most important tools in medicine, vital for developing the polio vaccine, cloning, gene mapping, in vitro fertilization, and more. Henrietta’s cells have been bought and sold by the billions, yet she remains virtually unknown, and her family can’t afford health insurance. This New York Times bestseller takes readers on an extraordinary journey, from the “colored” ward of Johns Hopkins Hospital in the 1950s to stark white laboratories with freezers filled with HeLa cells, from Henrietta’s small, dying hometown of Clover, Virginia, to East Baltimore today, where her children and grandchildren live and struggle with the legacy of her cells. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks tells a riveting story of the collision between ethics, race, and medicine; of scientific discovery and faith healing; and of a daughter consumed with questions about the mother she never knew. It’s a story inextricably connected to the dark history of experimentation on African Americans, the birth of bioethics, and the legal battles over whether we control the stuff we’re made of. ([source][1]) [1]: http://rebeccaskloot.com/the-immortal-life/

When Breath Becomes Air is a non-fiction autobiographical book written by American neurosurgeon Paul Kalanithi. It is a memoir about his life and illness, battling stage IV metastatic lung cancer. It was posthumously published by Random House on January 12, 2016.

Cutting for Stone (2009) is a novel written by Ethiopian-born Indian-American medical doctor and author Abraham Verghese. It is a saga of twin brothers, orphaned by their mother's death at their births and forsaken by their father. The book includes both a deep description of medical procedures and an exploration of the human side of medical practices. When first published, the novel was on The New York Times Best Seller list for two years and generally received well by critics. With its positive reception, Barack Obama put it on his summer reading list and the book was optioned for adaptations.

As in all hospitals, the medical hierarchy of The House of God was a pyramid - a lot at the bottom and one at the top. Put another way, it was like an ice-cream cone...you had to lick your way up!Roy Basch, the 'red-hot' Rhodes Scholar, thought differently - but then he hadn't met Hyper Hooper, out to win the most post-mortems of the year award, nor Molly, the nurse with the crash helmet. He hadn't even met any of the Gomers ('Get Out of My Emergency Room!'), the no-hopers who wanted to die but who were worth more alive...The House of God is a wild and raunchily irreverent novel that teaches you the not-so-gentle arts of healing, and tells you what your doctor never wanted you to know. It is the best medicine since M*A*S*H, and does for the doctor's art what Catch-22 did for the art of war.

"The story of a woman whose gift for flowers helps her change the lives of others even as she struggles to overcome her own past"--

"Alexandra Clarkson is having terrifying dreams filled with blood and ceremonial images. Her mother, Patsy, commits suicide after speaking with Detective Daniel Reed. Years earlier, Patsy was married to Harlan Sommer, a prominent vintner, when their infant son disappeared. The loss destroyed their marriage, causing Patsy to leave and take Alex with her. Reed is investigating the identity of a baby's remains unearthed in a Sonoma vineyard and Reed and Alex both wonder if the cold bones could be her brother Dylan. Alex decides to go to Sonoma and is soon drawn into the search for a twisted killer..." --Cover, p. 4.

It should have been a routine childbirth. But somehow, the mother died in the delivery, the baby was born brain-damaged, and Jeffrey Rhodes, the anesthesiologist, is running for his life. Charged with malpractice, he is found guilty of harmful intent and reckless disregard for human life. To clear his name, Rhodes must follow a fugitive trail into the heart of medical nightmare. A trail that, for some, may end in suicide--and for others, in the most shocking conspiracy of our time...

In this Jane Austen–inspired comedy, love story, and exploration of identity and destiny, a modern LA girl wakes up as an Englishwoman in Austen's time.After nursing a broken engagement with Jane Austen novels and Absolut, Courtney Stone wakes up and finds herself not in her Los Angeles bedroom or even in her own body, but inside the bedchamber of a woman in Regency England. Who but an Austen addict like herself could concoct such a fantasy?Not only is Courtney stuck in another woman's life, she is forced to pretend she actually is that woman; and despite knowing nothing about her, she manages to fool even the most astute observer. But not even her love of Jane Austen has prepared Courtney for the chamber pots and filthy coaching inns of nineteenth-century England, let alone the realities of being a single woman who must fend off suffocating chaperones, condomless seducers, and marriages of convenience. Enter the enigmatic Mr. Edgeworth, who fills Courtney's borrowed brain with confusing memories that are clearly not her own.Try as she might to control her mind and find a way home, Courtney cannot deny that she is becoming this other woman—and being this other woman is not without its advantages: Especially in a looking-glass Austen world. Especially with a suitor who may not turn out to be a familiar species of philanderer after all.

In 1887 rural Missouri, Lyric Bolton lives a life of isolation to care for her mother when Ian Cawley bursts into her life on a runaway stallion.

One night, desperate for money to support her grandfather, Jessy Sparhawk places the bet that will change her life forever. Just as she's collecting her winnings, a man stumbles through the crowd, a knife protruding from his back, and crashes into her, pinning her to the table.Hired to investigate the murder, private detective Dillon Wolf finds himself fascinated by the gorgeous redhead who'd been trapped beneath the victim--and by the single word the dying man had whispered in her ear. Indigo.One murder leads to another as Dillon and Jessy realize that the nightmare is only just beginning--and that the dead still have a hand left to play.

The “orphan train” seemed like small-town spinster Adelaide Crum’s last chance to know the simple joys of family life. So many lost children, every one of them dreaming only of a caring home--the home she longed to offer. And yet the narrow-minded town elders refused to entrust even the most desperate child to a woman alone....Newspaperman Charles Graves believed his heart was closed forever, but he swore to stand by this lovely, lonely woman who was fighting for the right to take some motherless child into her heart. And her gentle soul and unwavering faith made him wonder if even he could overcome the bitter lessons of the past, and somehow find the courage to love....

"While the world was still reeling from the staggering losses incurred in the First World War, a little-known Canadian sculptor was raising a colossal monument in France, where more than sixty-six thousand of his countrymen had fought and died. The Vimy Ridge Memorial still stands as a stark reminder of the Canadians who gave their lives in France - and as a testament to the vision and single-minded obsession of its now-forgotten architect, Walter Allward.". "It is against the backdrop of this incredible achievement that Jane Urquhart sets her new novel. At the center of the story is Klara Becker, the granddaughter of a master woodcarver, who spends her childhood in a German-settled community in southwestern Ontario in the years leading up to the Great War. It is a childhood punctuated by tremendous losses: her mother dies of cancer when she is a teenager; her older brother, in love with wandering, eventually leaves the family; and her brief but passionate love affair with Eamon O'Sullivan is cut short when he volunteers for action and never returns. But Klara's inherited gift for carving eventually reunites her with her brother and gives her purpose as she works on the memorial that will make her whole again."--BOOK JACKET.

The New York Times bestselling author of The Other Woman returns with a wry tale of two women who discover the grass is not always greener on the other side of the AtlanticVicky Townsley is single, solvent, and seriously successful. Features director of the hugely successful Poise! magazine, she has an amazing flat, good friends, a fantastic wardrobe . . . in short, everything—except the life she wants: marriage, children, and a house in the country.On the other side of the Atlantic, Amber Winslow has a stone mansion in Connecticut, two kids (and a full-time nanny), the requisite golden retriever, and a busy charitable commitment for the local Women's League. But she hasn't quite found the fulfillment she had expected from being a wife and mother. When she spots an intriguing contest in Poise!, Amber never expects to be picked.Life Swap is a riotous and poignant look at what happens when two women, both of whom think their bliss lies elsewhere, walk in each other's shoes for a month only to discover that happiness is closer than they'd ever thought. A rich, clever, and sharply observed chronicle of the true lives of women, Life Swap is a must read for the modern mademoiselle that will again squarely position Jane Green in a preeminent place in women's fiction.