Medical Mysteries & Thrilling Histories

Updated June 7, 2026
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The facemaker : a visionary surgeon's battle to mend the disfigured soldiers of World War I
Fitzharris, Lindsey
Paper Book
A New York Times Bestseller Finalist for the 2022 Kirkus Prize | Named a best book of the year by The Guardian "Enthralling. Harrowing. Heartbreaking. And utterly redemptive. Lindsey Fitzharris hit this one out of the park." --Erik Larson, author of...
Replaceable you : adventures in human anatomy
Roach, Mary
Paper Book
The body is the most complex machine in the world, and the only one for which you cannot get a replacement part from the manufacturer. For centuries, medicine has reached for what's available--sculpting noses from brass, borrowing skin from frogs and hearts from pigs, crafting eye parts from jet...
Destiny of the Republic A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President
Millard, Candice.
Audiobook
James A. Garfield was one of the most extraordinary men ever elected president. Born into abject poverty, he rose to become a wunderkind scholar, a Civil War hero, and a renowned and admired reformist congressman. Nominated for president against his will, he engaged in a fierce battle with the...
The invisible kingdom : reimagining chronic illness
O'Rourke, Meghan
Paper Book
Drawing on her own medical experience as well as fifteen years of interviews with doctors, patients, researchers, and public health experts, O'Rourke's incisive new work speaks to an urgent subject: the epidemic scale of autoimmune disease in America (even greater with the advent of 'Long Covid')...
Empire of pain : the secret history of the Sackler dynasty
Keefe, Patrick Radden
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR * A grand, devastating portrait of three generations of the Sackler family, famed for their philanthropy, whose fortune was built by Valium and whose reputation was destroyed by OxyContin. From...
The immortal life of Henrietta Lacks
Skloot, Rebecca
Paper Book
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * "The story of modern medicine and bioethics--and, indeed, race relations--is refracted beautifully, and movingly."--Entertainment Weekly NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE FROM HBO® STARRING OPRAH WINFREY AND ROSE BYRNE * ONE OF THE "MOST...
0101814072159
614.58 P926H
Audiobook
A highly infectious, deadly virus from the central African rain forest suddenly appears in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. There is no cure. In a few days 90 percent of its victims are dead. A secret military SWAT team of soldiers and scientists is mobilized to stop the outbreak of this exotic "hot"...
The emperor of all maladies : a biography of cancer
Mukherjee, Siddhartha
Paper Book
Selected as One of the Best Books of the 21st Century by The New York Times Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, adapted as a documentary from Ken Burns on PBS, this New York Times bestseller is "an extraordinary achievement" (The New Yorker)--a magnificent,...
Stiff : the curious lives of human cadavers
Roach, Mary.
Ebook
A New York Times science bestseller from "America's funniest science writer" ( Washington Post ), this "quirky, funny read offers perspective and insight about life, death and the medical profession" ( Wall Street Journal ). With a...
Hidden Valley Road : inside the mind of an American family
Kolker, Robert
Paper Book
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * OPRAH'S BOOK CLUB PICK * ONE OF GQ's TOP 50 BOOKS OF LITERARY JOURNALISM IN THE 21st CENTURY * The heartrending story of a midcentury American family with twelve children, six of them diagnosed with schizophrenia, that became science's great hope in...
Five days at Memorial : life and death in a storm-ravaged hospital
Fink, Sheri
Paper Book
One of the New York Times's Best Ten Books of the Year Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction Winner of the 2014 J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize, the PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize,...
Bad blood : secrets and lies in a Silicon Valley startup
Carreyrou, John
Paper Book
NATIONAL BESTSELLER * The gripping story of Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos--one of the biggest corporate frauds in history--a tale of ambition and hubris set amid the bold promises of Silicon Valley, rigorously reported by the prize-winning journalist. With a new Afterword.
All in her head : the truth and lies early medicine taught us about women's bodies and why it matters today
Comen, Elizabeth
Paper Book
Finalist for the 2025 PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award USA Today Bestseller "All in Her Head accomplishes a remarkable feat of storytelling. By combining essential medical histories about women's bodies with all the narrative...
Smoke gets in your eyes : and other lessons from the crematory
Doughty, Caitlin
Paper Book
Most people want to avoid thinking about death, but Caitlin Doughty--a twenty-something with a degree in medieval history and a flair for the macabre--took a job at a crematory, turning morbid curiosity into her life's work. Thrown into a profession of gallows humor and vivid characters (both...
The code breaker : Jennifer Doudna, gene editing, and the future of the human race
Isaacson, Walter
Paper Book
A Best Book of 2021 by Bloomberg BusinessWeek, Time, and The Washington Post The bestselling author of Leonardo da Vinci and Steve Jobs returns with a "compelling" (The Washington Post) account of how Nobel Prize winner Jennifer Doudna...
Brain on fire : my month of madness
Cahalan, Susannah.
Paper Book
A gripping memoir and medical suspense story about a young New York Post reporter's struggle with a rare and terrifying disease, opening a new window into the fascinating world of brain science. One day in 2009, twenty-four-year-old Susannah Cahalan woke up alone in a...
I contain multitudes : the microbes within us and a grander view of life
Yong, Ed
Paper Book
New York Times Bestseller New York Times Notable Book of 2016 * NPR Great Read of 2016 * Named a Best Book of 2016 by The Economist, Smithsonian, NPR's Science Friday, MPR, Minnesota Star Tribune, Kirkus Reviews,...
Gulp : adventures on the alimentary canal
Roach, Mary.
Paper Book
"America's funniest science writer" (Washington Post) takes us down the hatch on an unforgettable tour. The alimentary canal is classic Mary Roach terrain: the questions explored in Gulp are as taboo, in their way, as the cadavers in Stiff and every bit as surreal as the universe of zero gravity...
The cure for women : Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi and the challenge to Victorian medicine that changed women's lives forever
Reeder, Lydia
Paper Book
"Valiant and timely .... reintroduces its subject as a hero for this moment." ―The New York Times How Victorian male doctors used false science to argue that women were unfit for anything but motherhood--and the brilliant doctor who defied them ...
The gene : an intimate history
Mukherjee, Siddhartha,
Paper Book
The #1 NEW YORK TIMES Bestseller The basis for the PBS Ken Burns Documentary The Gene: An Intimate History From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Emperor of All Maladies--a fascinating history of the gene and "a magisterial account of...
And the band played on : politics, people, and the AIDS epidemic
Shilts, Randy.
Ebook
Upon its first publication more than twenty years ago, And the Band Played on was quickly recognized as a masterpiece of investigative reporting. An international bestseller, a nominee for the National Book Critics Circle Award, and made into a critically acclaimed...
The poisoner's handbook : murder and the birth of forensic medicine in Jazz Age New York
Blum, Deborah
Paper Book
Pulitzer Prize-winning science writer Deborah Blum follows New York City's first forensic scientists to discover a fascinating Jazz Age story of chemistry and detection, poison and murder. Deborah Blum, writing with the high style and skill for suspense that is characteristic of...
Forensics : what bugs, burns, prints, DNA, and more tell us about crime
McDermid, Val
Paper Book
Val McDermid is one of the finest crime writers we have, whose novels have captivated millions of readers worldwide with their riveting narratives of characters who solve complex crimes and confront unimaginable evil. In the course of researching her bestselling novels McDermid has become...
The good nurse : a true story of medicine, madness, and murder
Graeber, Charles.
Ebook
Crisis in the red zone : the story of the deadliest Ebola outbreak in history, and of the outbreaks to come
Preston, Richard
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * An urgent wake-up call about the future of emerging viruses and a gripping account of the doctors and scientists fighting to protect us, told through the story of the deadly 2013-2014 Ebola epidemic   "Crisis in the Red Zone...
The mind electric : a neurologist on the strangeness and wonder of our brains
Anand, Pria
Paper Book
Winner of the PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award Named a Best Book of Summer by The Globe and Mail (Toronto), Publishers Weekly, and Book Riot The Observer (London)'s Summer Reads Select In this...
A history of the world in six plagues : how contagion, class, and captivity shaped us, from Cholera to COVID-19
Bonhomme, Edna
Paper Book
An "incredible, humane, insightful" (Ed Yong, Pulitzer Prize winner) account of humankind's battles with epidemic disease, and their outsized role in deepening inequality along racial, ethnic, class, and gender lines--in the vein of Medical Apartheid and ...
Unshrunk : a story of psychiatric treatment resistance
Delano, Laura
Paper Book
One of NPR's 2025 "Books We Love" "Delano's story is compelling, important and even haunting. . . . Her memoir evokes Girl, Interrupted for the age of the prescription pill. . . . In Unshrunk, she tells her own story, and she tells it powerfully." --Casey Schwartz,...
Complications : a surgeon's notes on an imperfect science
Gawande, Atul.
Audiobook
Do no harm : stories of life, death, and brain surgery
Marsh, Henry
Paper Book
The Instant New York Times best seller! Riveting. ... [Marsh] gives us an extraordinarily intimate, compassionate and sometimes frightening understanding of his vocation. - The New York Times Winner of the PEN Ackerley Prize Shortlisted for both the...
A fatal inheritance : how a family misfortune revealed a deadly medical mystery
Ingrassia, Lawrence
Paper Book
Nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award in Nonfiction Named a best book of the year by Amazon, NPR, and Kirkus Weaving his own moving family story with a sweeping history of cancer research, Lawrence Ingrassia delivers an intimate,...
How to survive a plague : the inside story of how citizens and science tamed AIDS
France, David
Ebook
One of Entertainment Weekly's Top 10 Nonfiction Books of the Decade A definitive history of the successful battle to halt the AIDS epidemic, here is the incredible story of the grassroots activists whose work turned HIV from a mostly fatal infection to a manageable...
Every patient tells a story : medical mysteries and the art of diagnosis
Sanders, Lisa
Paper Book
This work presents an unflinching look inside the detective story that marks nearly every illness - the diagnosis - revealing the combination of uncertainty and intrigue that doctors face when confronting patients who are sick or dying.
The Doctors' Riot of 1788 : body snatching, bloodletting, and anatomy in America
McPhee, Andy
Paper Book
Throughout the seventeenth century, medical lecturers demonstrated human anatomy by dissecting a cadaver while surrounded by students. After the Revolutionary War, though, instructors realized that they needed many more cadavers to serve a growing number of medical students. Enter the...
Death's acre : inside the legendary forensic lab the Body Farm where the dead do tell tales
Bass, William M.
Ebook
"Fans of the forensics-oriented novels of such mystery writers as Kathy Reichs and Patricia Cornwell...not to mention television series like CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, will make an eager audience for this one."--Booklist On a patch of land in the Tennessee...
The occasional human sacrifice : medical experimentation and the price of saying no
Elliott, Carl
Paper Book
Shocking cases of abusive medical research and the whistleblowers who spoke out against them, sometimes at the expense of their careers. The Occasional Human Sacrifice is an intellectual inquiry into the moral struggle that whistleblowers face, and why it is not the kind of...
Genome : the autobiography of a species in 23 chapters
Ridley, Matt.
Ebook
"Ridley leaps from chromosome to chromosome in a handy summation of our ever increasing understanding of the roles that genes play in disease, behavior, sexual differences, and even intelligence. . . . . He addresses not only the ethical quandaries faced by contemporary scientists but the...
Smile : the story of a face
Ruhl, Sarah
Ebook
* A People Best Book of the Year * Time and The Washington Post's Most Anticipated List * Longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence * From the MacArthur genius, two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist, and playwright, this "captivating, insightful...
The other Dr. Gilmer : two men, a murder, and an unlikely fight for justice
Gilmer, Benjamin
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS' CHOICE * A "mesmerizing" (The New York Times Book Review) true story about a shocking crime and a mysterious illness that will forever change your notions of how we punish and how we heal--an expansion on one of the most popular This American Life...
The sleeping beauties : and other stories of mystery illness
O'Sullivan, Suzanne
Paper Book
In Sweden, hundreds of refugee children fall into a state that resembles sleep for months or years at a time. In Le Roy, a town in upstate New York, teenage girls develop involuntary twitches and seizures that spread like a conta­gion. In the U.S. Embassy in Cuba, employees experience headaches and...
The red market : on the trail of the world's organ brokers, bone thieves, blood farmers, and child traffickers
Carney, Scott M.
Ebook
"An unforgettable nonfiction thriller, expertly reported....A tremendously revealing and twisted ride, where life and death are now mere cold cash commodities." --Michael Largo, author of Final Exits Award-winning investigative journalist and contributing Wired...
Rumbles : a curious history of the gut, the secret story of the body's most fascinating organ
Richardson, Elsa
Paper Book
The fascinating--and often secret--history of the body's most fascinating system: the gut. The stomach is notoriously outspoken. It growls, gurgles, and grumbles while other organs remain silent, inconspicuous, and content. For centuries humans have puzzled over this rowdy, often...
The genome odyssey : medical mysteries and the incredible quest to solve them
Ashley, Euan A.
Paper Book
In The Genome Odyssey, Dr. Euan Ashley, Stanford professor of medicine and genetics, brings the breakthroughs of precision medicine to vivid life through the real diagnostic journeys of his patients and the tireless efforts of his fellow doctors and scientists as they hunt to prevent,...
One doctor : close calls, cold cases, and the mysteries of medicine
Reilly, Brendan M.
Audiobook
An epic story told by a unique voice in Ameri­can medicine, One Doctor describes life-changing experiences in the career of a distinguished physi­cian. In riveting first-person prose, Dr. Brendan Reilly takes us to the front lines of medicine today. Whipsawed by daily crises and frustra­tions,...
Mapping the darkness : the visionary scientists who unlocked the mysteries of sleep
Miller, Kenneth (Journalist)
Paper Book
WINNER OF THE 2024 ASJA BOOK AWARD, BIOGRAPHY/HISTORY  NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR 2023 BY THE NEW YORKER   NEW YORK TIMES EDITOR'S CHOICE SELECTION From award...
Good blood : a doctor, a donor, and the incredible breakthrough that saved millions of babies
Guthrie, Julian
Ebook
The New York Times-bestselling author of How to Make a Spaceship presents the remarkable, uplifting story of a life-saving medical breakthrough.   In 1951 in Sydney, Australia, a fourteen-year-old boy named James Harrison was near death when he...
Blood Farm : the explosive big pharma scandal that altered the AIDS crisis
McGoogan, Cara
Ebook
"A stunning investigation." ­­  -- Publishers Weekly  How a miracle treatment turned deadly and changed the course of the AIDS crisis. By the mid 1980s, AIDS hysteria was so rampant...
The panic virus : a true story of medicine, science, and fear
Mnookin, Seth.
Paper Book
WHO DECIDES WHICH FACTS ARE TRUE? In 1998 Andrew Wakefield, a British gastroenterologist with a history of self-promotion, published a paper with a shocking allegation: the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine might cause autism. The media seized hold of the story and, in the process, helped...

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