Healing Reads: The Year’s Five Best Books

/ Book Recommendations / By Mary Daniels Brown / December 22, 2011

Healing Reads: The Year’s Five Best Books – WSJ.com.

Health and medicine books tend to be long on advice and how-to, and short on compelling narrative and literary merit.

But several new books this year proved to be welcome exceptions, from a lyrical history of the human heart to an absorbing tale of one of the country’s toughest inner-city hospitals. Here are my top-five picks.

Here’s a different kind of list. Read why Laura Landro chose these five books:

Invasion of the Body: Revolutions in Surgery by Nicholas L. Tilney
The Panic Virus: A True Story of Medicine, Science and Fear by Seth Mnookin
County: Life, Death and Politics as Chicago’s Public Hospital by David. A. Ansell
The Sublime Engine: A Biography of the Human Heart by Stephen Amidon and Thomas Amidon
Your Medical Mind: How to Decide What Is Right for You by Jerome Groopman and Pamela Hartzband

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About The Author

Mary Daniels Brown

My mother always insisted that, as soon as I was old enough to sit up, she’d find me in my crib after my nap babbling away, with a Little Golden Book on my lap. I’ve had my nose in a book ever since. I grew up in a small town, with the tiny town library literally in my backyard. As an only child in an unhappy home, I found comfort and companionship in books. As an adult I wanted to be Harry Potter, although I admit I’m more Hermione. My life has been a series of research projects. Reading has taught me that human lives are deliciously messy and that “it’s complicated” isn’t a punchline.