Books like Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures by Vincent Lam

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.

A sweeping, family‑centered saga of twin brothers and their father, set against medical practice and the ethical questions of a New York physician.

A collection of short stories by George Saunders, featuring unforgettable characters and Saunders’s signature blend of exuberant prose, deep humanity, and stylistic innovation.

A sweeping, nonfiction biography of cancer that traces the disease’s discovery, the development of therapies, and the lives of patients and scientists who shaped its history, earning a Pulitzer Prize and New York Times bestseller status.

A collection of eight short stories that follows modern Bengali‑American families across India, Thailand, Cambridge, and Seattle, revealing the quiet mysteries of love, duty, and identity.

John Grisham’s debut short‑story collection, Ford County, gathers seven novellas set in Mississippi, exploring human foibles and Mississippi life with Grisham’s trademark blend of suspense and moral inquiry.

The House of God exposes the harsh realities of medical training, illustrating a strict hierarchy in hospitals and the pressures faced by residents, interns, physicians, and nurses.

Alice Munro turns a quiet, long‑term marriage into a study of memory and love, following retired professor Grant as his wife Fiona gradually loses her memories and the couple confronts the fragile bonds that held them together.

Laura Groff’s Florida navigates the state’s weather, wildlife, and history as backdrop for stories of love, loss, and loneliness that pulse with wit, sadness, and hunger for connection.

A true‑story examination of a Laotian immigrant child’s illness and the clash between Hmong cultural beliefs and Western medical practice.

A New York Times‑reviewed collection of American short stories where a student, a late‑night dinner party and a matchmaker each explore love, loss, and the past.

A new collection of Alice Munro’s short fiction, featuring twenty‑five stories set in southwestern Ontario that explore ordinary lives with precision and compassion.

From Kay Redfield Jamison - an international authority on manic-depressive illness, and one of the few women who are full professors of medicine at American universities - a remarkable personal testimony: the revelation of her own struggle since adolescence with manic-depression, and how it has shaped her life. Vividly, directly, with candor, wit, and simplicity, she takes us into the fascinating and dangerous territory of this form of madness - a world in which one pole can be the alluring dark land ruled by what Byron called the "melancholy star of the imagination," and the other a desert of depression and, all too frequently, death. A moving and exhilarating memoir by a woman whose furious determination to learn the enemy, to use her gifts of intellect to make a difference, led her to become, by the time she was forty, a world authority on manic-depression, and whose work has helped save countless lives.

In this collection of surreal short stories, Aimee Bender weaves fantastical worlds where extraordinary beings—a boy with key‑fingers, a woman’s potato children, a pumpkin‑headed family—explore themes of love, identity, and the human condition.

A collection of Margaret Atwood’s imaginative short stories that blend surreal scenarios with sharp observations on relationships.

Margaret Atwood's Moral Disorder and Other Stories explores the interconnected lives of characters from various generations, showcasing her storytelling gifts and personal insights.

Mankind's battle to stay alive is the greatest of all subjects. This brief, witty and unusual book by Britain's greatest medical historian compresses into a tiny span a lifetime spent thinking about millennia of human ingenuity in the quest to cheat death. Each chapter sums up one of these battlefields (surgery, doctors, disease, hospitals, laboratories and the human body) in a way that is both frightening and elating. Startlingly illustrated, A SHORT HISTORY OF MEDICINE is the ideal present for anyone who is keenly aware of their own mortality and wants to do something about it. It is also a wonderful memorial to one of Penguin's greatest historians.

First short‑story collection by Aurelie Sheehan, featuring lyrical, often humorous portraits of women who challenge gender expectations, set amid American social norms.

In 1995, Jean-Dominique Bauby was the editor in chief of French Elle, the father of two young children, a forty-three-year-old man known and loved for his wit, his style, and his impassioned approach to life. By the end of the year he was also the victim of a rare kind of stroke to the brain stem. After twenty days in a coma, Bauby awoke into a body that had all but stopped working: only his left eye functioned, allowing him to see and, by blinking, to make clear that his mind was unimpaired. Almost miraculously, he was soon able to express himself in the richest detail, blinking to select letters one by one as a special alphabet was slowly recited to him, over and over again. In the same way, he was eventually able to compose this extraordinary book. By turns wistful, mischievous, angry and witty, Bauby bears witness to his determination to live as fully in his mind as he had been able to in his body. He explains the joy, and the deep sadness, of seeing his children and of hearing his aged father's voice on the phone. In magical sequences, he imagines traveling to other places and times; of lying next to the woman he loves. Fed only intravenously, he imagines preparing and tasting the full flavor of delectable dishes. Again and again he returns to an "inexhaustible reservoir of sensations," keeping in touch with himself and the life around him.

Fenstad's Mother / Charles Baxter -- Customs of the country / Madison Smartt Bell -- Living to be a hundred / Robert Boswell -- The black hand girl / Blanche McCrary Boyd -- Kubuku Rides (This is it) / Larry Brown -- Ralph the Duck / Frederick Busch -- White angel / Michael Cunningham -- The flowers of boredom / Rick DeMarinis -- Edie: a life / Harriet Doerr -- The concert party / Mavis Gallant -- Why I decide to kill myself and other jokes / Douglas Glover -- Disneyland / Barbara Gowdy -- Aunt Moon's young man / Linda Hogan -- Displacement / David Wong Louie -- The management of grief / Bharati Mukherjee -- Meneseteung / Alice Munro -- What men love for / Dale Ray Phillips -- Strays / Mark Richard -- The boy on the train / Arthur Robinson -- The letter writer / M.T. Sharif. Responsibility: selected from U.S. and Canadian magazines by Margaret Atwood with Shannon Ravenel ; with an introduction by Margaret Atwood.