A Cure Too Far takes the reader back to the bleak time in Africa when doctors stood by helplessly and watched in horror as their distraught patients were hijacked by a ragtag army of cocky healers. It describes an obstacle-strewn struggle to stop peddlers of fake AIDS drugs and other detractors while trying to find a scientifically proven solution to alleviate the carnage. This story is informed by incredible personal accounts of individuals who played different roles in the war for survival, and of those who found the agony too much to bear, as the relentless scourge ripped apart thousands of years of cultural practices. Even when hope appeared in January 2003, through the President's Emergancy Programme for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), a devastating financial crunch hit, threatening to undo all that had been achieved!
A husband and wife race to find a cure for the disease that has inspired a serial killer to terrorize Manhattan in this classic medical thriller from the bestselling author and creator of the hit Netflix drama The Stranger. They’re one of the country’s most telegenic couples: beloved TV journalist Sara Lowell and New York’s hottest basketball star, Michael Silverman. Their family and social connections tie them to the highest echelons of the political, medical, and sports worlds—threads that will tangle them up in one of the most controversial and deadly issues of our time. In a clinic on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, a doctor has dedicated his life to eradicating a divisive and devastating disease. One by one, his patients are getting well. One by one, they’re being targeted by a serial killer. And now Michael has been diagnosed with the disease. There’s only one cure, but many ways to die...
LOS ANGELES TIMES AND PUBLISHERS WEEKLY BESTSELLER • The powerful memoir of a young doctor and former college athlete diagnosed with a rare disease who spearheaded the search for a cure—and became a champion for a new approach to medical research. “A wonderful and moving chronicle of a doctor’s relentless pursuit, this book serves both patients and physicians in demystifying the science that lies behind medicine.”—Siddhartha Mukherjee, New York Times bestselling author of The Emperor of All Maladies and The Gene David Fajgenbaum, a former Georgetown quarterback, was nicknamed the Beast in medical school, where he was also known for his unmatched mental stamina. But things changed dramatically when he began suffering from inexplicable fatigue. In a matter of weeks, his organs were failing and he was read his last rites. Doctors were baffled by his condition, which they had yet to even diagnose. Floating in and out of consciousness, Fajgenbaum prayed for a second chance, the equivalent of a dramatic play to second the game into overtime. Miraculously, Fajgenbaum survived—only to endure repeated near-death relapses from what would eventually be identified as a form of Castleman disease, an extremely deadly and rare condition that acts like a cross between cancer and an autoimmune disorder. When he relapsed while on the only drug in development and realized that the medical community was unlikely to make progress in time to save his life, Fajgenbaum turned his desperate hope for a cure into concrete action: Between hospitalizations he studied his own charts and tested his own blood samples, looking for clues that could unlock a new treatment. With the help of family, friends, and mentors, he also reached out to other Castleman disease patients and physicians, and eventually came up with an ambitious plan to crowdsource the most promising research questions and recruit world-class researchers to tackle them. Instead of waiting for the scientific stars to align, he would attempt to align them himself. More than five years later and now married to his college sweetheart, Fajgenbaum has seen his hard work pay off: A treatment he identified has induced a tentative remission and his novel approach to collaborative scientific inquiry has become a blueprint for advancing rare disease research. His incredible story demonstrates the potency of hope, and what can happen when the forces of determination, love, family, faith, and serendipity collide. Praise for Chasing My Cure “A page-turning chronicle of living, nearly dying, and discovering what it really means to be invincible in hope.”—Angela Duckworth, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Grit “[A] remarkable memoir . . . Fajgenbaum writes lucidly and movingly . . . Fajgenbaum’s stirring account of his illness will inspire readers.”—Publishers Weekly
"Delightful... elegant prose and discussions that span the history of 2,000 years of literature."—Publisher's Weekly A novel is a story transmitted from the novelist to the reader. It offers distraction, entertainment, and an opportunity to unwind or focus. But it can also be something more powerful—a way to learn about how to live. Read at the right moment in your life, a novel can—quite literally—change it. The Novel Cure is a reminder of that power. To create this apothecary, the authors have trawled two thousand years of literature for novels that effectively promote happiness, health, and sanity, written by brilliant minds who knew what it meant to be human and wrote their life lessons into their fiction. Structured like a reference book, readers simply look up their ailment, be it agoraphobia, boredom, or a midlife crisis, and are given a novel to read as the antidote. Bibliotherapy does not discriminate between pains of the body and pains of the head (or heart). Aware that you’ve been cowardly? Pick up To Kill a Mockingbird for an injection of courage. Experiencing a sudden, acute fear of death? Read One Hundred Years of Solitude for some perspective on the larger cycle of life. Nervous about throwing a dinner party? Ali Smith’s There but for The will convince you that yours could never go that wrong. Whatever your condition, the prescription is simple: a novel (or two), to be read at regular intervals and in nice long chunks until you finish. Some treatments will lead to a complete cure. Others will offer solace, showing that you’re not the first to experience these emotions. The Novel Cure is also peppered with useful lists and sidebars recommending the best novels to read when you’re stuck in traffic or can’t fall asleep, the most important novels to read during every decade of life, and many more. Brilliant in concept and deeply satisfying in execution, The Novel Cure belongs on everyone’s bookshelf and in every medicine cabinet. It will make even the most well-read fiction aficionado pick up a novel he’s never heard of, and see familiar ones with new eyes. Mostly, it will reaffirm literature’s ability to distract and transport, to resonate and reassure, to change the way we see the world and our place in it. "This appealing and helpful read is guaranteed to double the length of a to-read list and become a go-to reference for those unsure of their reading identities or who are overwhelmed by the sheer number of books in the world."—Library Journal
Well, there’s overprotective—and then there’s Little Red Henry’s family! A hilarious tale about what happens when a coddled kid asserts his independence. Little redheaded Henry’s family treats him like a baby. They dress him. They feed him. They brush his “widdle toofers.” But he’s not a baby anymore. He’s a little boy who wants to do things for himself. So with his family watching anxiously from the wings, Henry sets out on a glorious day of independence. But will things swing too far in the other direction? In this charming reworking of the classic tale of the Little Red Hen, author Linda Urban and illustrator Madeline Valentine gently and humorously depict a family trying to find a middle ground between hovering over their youngest member and giving him room to grow.
A researcher boldly wades through commercialized health and fitness fads to bust pervasive myths—and reveal the true science—behind what it means to live a healthy life. In this era of health-science research, rarely a day goes by without a public pronouncement of some exciting health-enhancing discovery: a new diet, a new fitness routine, a new drug or alternative therapy, the miracles achieved by genetic mapping. And we are told—by the media, health-care experts, even government—that we should use this information to live a healthier life. But what information can we trust? In The Cure for Everything, health policy expert and fitness enthusiast Timothy Caulfield wades through the tides of health crazes, misleading data, and well-meaning gurus in a quest to sort out real, reliable health advice. Seamlessly switching between his sweatsuit and his lab coat, Caulfield doesn’t just pore over the research and interview the professionals; he gets his t-shirt sweaty and his meridians aligned, testing out the scientific validity of some of the health and fitness crazes of our day. Science is everywhere, but what passes through most people’s field of vision is often wrong, hyped, or twisted by an ideological or commercial agenda. And without good scientific data, bad decisions are made—by doctors and governments, by you and me. Caulfield demonstrates, alas, that there are no quick fixes or simple steps to flat abs; that you will never be able to eat all you want; that no “natural” supplements will lead to better health; that knowing your genetic map will not save you from almost anything. The Cure for Everything ends with 5 simple, scientifically sound—and, yet, difficult—steps to take in order to lead a longer, healthier life.
Heidi, The Secret Garden, and Pollyanna are all classic "girls' books, " featuring a miracle cure of an invalid character who literally gets up and walks away from illness or paralysis. Such stories were common in Victorian novels and they implicitly conveyed the idea that disability and physical suffering were punishment for wrongdoing: unruly girls could not enter womanhood unless they were tamed, and an accident was the perfect plot device for this transformation. Other characters, like Helen Burns in Jane Eyre or Beth in Little Women, were just too good to live, and died so that another character could be redeemed by their example. Lois Keith points out in this study that the temptation to either cure or kill off disabled characters has surprising tenacity. The widespread belief that a disabled life isn't a full life and that patients can cure themselves through force of will endures to the present day. In Take Up Thy Bed & Walk, Lois Keith brings her lively and observant eye to the classic books of childhood from Jane Eyre, Heidi, and Pollyanna, to modern American classics such as Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House on the Prairie and Judy Blume's Deenie. Keith explores the recurring images of impairment and ill health in literature and asks the reader to reconsider the messages they send to a devoted young audience. This book is also a testament to the singular passion with which these books are read by younger readers and reminds us of the intensity of our own reading experience as children.
A woman in a township in Zimbabwe is surrounded by throngs of dusty children but longs for a baby of her own; an old man finds that his new job making coffins at No Matter Funeral Parlor brings unexpected riches; a politician's widow stands quietly by at her husband's funeral, watching his colleagues bury an empty casket. Petina Gappah's characters may have ordinary hopes and dreams, but they are living in a world where a loaf of bread costs half a million dollars, where wives can't trust even their husbands for fear of AIDS, and where people know exactly what will be printed in the one and only daily newspaper because the news is always, always good. In her spirited debut collection, the Zimbabwean writer Petina Gappah brings us the resilience and inventiveness of the people who struggle to live under Robert Mugabe's regime. She takes us across the city of Harare, from the townships beset by power cuts to the manicured lawns of privilege and corruption, where wealthy husbands keep their first wives in the "big houses" while their unofficial second wives wait in the "small houses," hoping for a promotion. Despite their circumstances, the characters in An Elegy for Easterly are more than victims—they are all too human, with as much capacity to inflict pain as to endure it. They struggle with the larger issues common to all people everywhere: failed promises, unfulfilled dreams, and the yearning for something to anchor them to life.
***LONG-LISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD*** A man and a woman have moved into a small house in a small village. The woman is an "examiner," charged with teaching the man a series of simple functions—this is a chair, this is a fork, this is how you meet people. Still, the man is haunted by strange dreams, and when he meets a charismatic, volatile young woman named Hilda at a party, it throws everything he has learned into question. What is this village? And why is he here? A fascinating novel of love, illness, despair, and betrayal, A Cure for Suicide is the most captivating novel yet from one of our most audacious and original young writers.
