Books like Cytomégalovirus by Hervé Guibert

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks follows the story of Henrietta Lacks, a poor black tobacco farmer whose cancer cells were taken in 1951 without her consent and later became the first immortal human cell line, HeLa, driving major scientific breakthroughs while raising questions of ethics, race, and medical exploitation.

Neurosurgeon Paul Kalanithi’s poignant memoir chronicles his battle with stage IV metastatic lung cancer and his reflections on life, medicine, and mortality.

David Foster Wallace's life and work in biography, capturing the literary genius and struggle of a misunderstood writer gone too soon, as journalist D. T. Max delves into the tormented life of one of America's most innovative and influential authors.

A powerful and poetic account of breast cancer survivor Audre Lorde's experience and transformation.

Claire Harman’s biography of Charlotte Brontë offers a fresh look at the author’s life, exploring how personal loss, love, and ambition shaped her novels and her legacy as a pioneering English woman novelist.

291 pages : 22 cm

"In the tradition of Brain on Fire and Darkness Visible, an honest, beautifully rendered memoir of chronic illness, misdiagnosis, addiction, and the myth of full recovery that details author Porochista Khakpour's struggles with late-stage Lyme disease. For as long as writer Porochista Khakpour can remember, she has been sick. For most of that time, she didn't know why. All of her trips to the ER and her daily anguish, pain, and lethargy only ever resulted in one question: How could any one person be this sick? Several drug addictions, three major hospitalizations, and over $100,000 later, she finally had a diagnosis: late-stage Lyme disease. Sick is Khakpour's arduous, emotional journey--as a woman, a writer, and a lifelong sufferer of undiagnosed health problems--through the chronic illness that perpetually left her a victim of anxiety, living a life stymied by an unknown condition. Divided by settings, Khakpour guides the reader through her illness by way of the locations that changed her course--New York, LA, New Mexico, and Germany--as she meditates on both the physical and psychological impacts of uncertainty, and the eventual challenge of accepting the diagnosis she had searched for over the course of her adult life. With candor and grace, she examines her subsequent struggles with mental illness, her addiction to the benzodiazepines prescribed by her psychiatrists, and her ever-deteriorating physical health. A story about survival, pain, and transformation, Sick is a candid, illuminating narrative of hope and uncertainty, boldly examining the deep impact of illness on one woman's life."--

After a severe head injury at twenty-two, Su Meck loses all memory of herself and her life, rebuilding her identity from observation and routine as she struggles to live as a wife and mother while revisiting the losses of her new existence years later.

An intimate look at the life of children's book author Madeleine L'Engle through interviews with her friends and associates.