Where is your nonfiction section please.
Raising Lazarus: Hope, Justice, and the Future of America’s Overdose Crisis, by Beth MacyUsed or new @SecondSale.com Journalist Beth Macy, who has been on the forefront of chronicling the opioid epidemic in the US for years, recently released her follow-up to 2018's Dopesick. I haven't really seen this new book get as much attention yet... Continue Reading →
Because my blogging has reached new productivity lows, I'm trying to at least gather some thoughts on the past year's reading. Trying! As I mentioned, I continued to read most heavily this year in the area of pop science and psychology. It's time to accept that I'll never get around to full reviews for these.... Continue Reading →
Hello and welcome: Happy first day of Nonfiction November! I'm your host this week for the kickoff, and I could not be more thrilled. Here's our topic: Week 1: (November 1-5) – Your Year in Nonfiction with Rennie at What’s Nonfiction: Take a look back at your year of nonfiction and reflect on the following questions... Continue Reading →
Uncaring: How the Culture of Medicine Kills Doctors and Patients, by Robert Pearl My desire [... ] isn't to castigate the culture, belabor its shortcomings, or embarrass individual doctors. Instead, my hope is to improve healthcare delivery in our nation, evolve physician culture, and restore the joys that have been stripped from the profession. Robert... Continue Reading →
An unexpected benefit of lockdown (we have to take little joys where we find them) has been getting to virtually snoop through people's bookshelves in Zoom meetings. Some journalists have done the good work of putting together lists of titles they've spotted on shelves during interviews. Dr. Fauci's books made it into one of these... Continue Reading →
Dr. Seema Yasmin is an MD, epidemiologist, and former disease detective with the Centers for Disease Control (cool job alert) who works in health journalism, doing what NHS doctor Ben Goldacre has implored other doctors and scientists to do: "translating" dense medical studies and scientific data so that the general public can more easily understand... Continue Reading →
Drink?: The New Science of Alcohol and Health, by David Nutt David Nutt is an English neuropsychopharmacologist, meaning he studies drugs that affect the brain. Of which alcohol is a big, bad one. He was fired, or asked to resign, from his position as a government drug advisor for saying on primetime radio "that alcohol... Continue Reading →
Standing in front of a display case at the Mütter Museum at The College of Physicians of Philadelphia, medical librarian Megan Rosenbloom was captivated by a book allegedly bound in human skin. Her curiosity about how and why such objects exist, and whether most are real at all, led to the hands-on and historical investigations... Continue Reading →
There was a time I didn't want to read one word about bodies or medicine, but maybe because of developing chronic health issues myself, or again living in the US uninsured, but as I mentioned in my first Nonfiction November post, I've been drawn to medical-related nonfiction lately. Here are three targeted at lay readers... Continue Reading →
Apollo's Arrow, by Nicholas A. Christakis (Bookshop.org) It seemed to me that the novel coronavirus was a threat that was both wholly new and deeply ancient. Yale sociologist, public health educator, and former hospice physician Nicholas A. Christakis's Apollo's Arrow covers the coronavirus pandemic, drawing comparisons to previous plagues and pandemics from history and mythology,... Continue Reading →
The Beauty in Breaking, by Michele Harper As a black woman, I navigate an American landscape that claims to be post-racial when every waking moment reveals the contrary, an American landscape that requires all women to pound tenaciously against the proverbial glass ceiling, which we've since discovered is made of palladium, the kind of glass... Continue Reading →
Book review: Clean: The New Science of Skin, by James Hamblin (Amazon) James Hamblin is a doctor of preventive medicine and staff writer at The Atlantic. His latest book, Clean: The New Science of Skin, looks at the mix of confusing messaging around what actually works in skincare, the scientific limits of products against their purported... Continue Reading →
What's Nonfiction? 