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.
Ebook
The inspiration for the Netflix series Death by Lightning - now streaming! * NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * The extraordinary account of James Garfield's rise from poverty to the American presidency, and the dramatic history of his assassination and legacy, from the bestselling author...
Empire of pain : the secret history of the Sackler dynasty
Keefe, Patrick Radden
Audiobook
NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE NOMINEE * A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR * NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER * A grand, devastating portrait of three generations of the Sackler family, famed for their philanthropy, whose fortune was built by Valium and whose reputation...
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
Paper Book
The bestselling landmark account of the first emergence of the Ebola virus. Now a mini-series drama starring Julianna Margulies, Topher Grace, Liam Cunningham, James D'Arcy, and Noah Emmerich on National Geographic. A highly infectious, deadly virus from...
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.
Paper Book
Stiff is an oddly compelling, often hilarious exploration of the strange lives of our bodies postmortem. For two thousand years, cadavers--some willingly, some unwittingly--have been involved in science's boldest strides and weirdest undertakings. They've tested France's first guillotines,...
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...
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...
The man who mistook his wife for a hat and other clinical tales
Sacks, Oliver W.
Paper Book
THE INSPIRATION FOR THE NBC SERIES BRILLIANT MINDS * In his most extraordinary book, the bestselling author of Awakenings and "poet laureate of medicine" (The New York Times) recounts the case histories of patients inhabiting the compelling world of neurological disorders,...
The spirit catches you and you fall down : a Hmong child, her American doctors, and the collision of two cultures
Fadiman, Anne
Paper Book
Now with a new Afterword from the author Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down explores the clash between a small county hospital in California and a refugee family from Laos over...
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
An anniversary edition of the award-winning memoir and instant New York Times bestseller that goes far beyond its riveting medical mystery, Brain on Fire is the powerful account of one woman's struggle to recapture her identity--with a new note to readers by the author. ...
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.
Paper Book
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...
The ghost map : the story of London's most terrifying epidemic--and how it changed science, cities, and the modern world
Johnson, Steven
Audiobook
A thrilling historical account of the worst cholera outbreak in Victorian London-and a brilliant exploration of how Dr. John Snow's solution revolutionized the way we think about disease, cities, science, and the modern world. From the dynamic thinker routinely compared to Malcolm Gladwell, E. O....
The butchering art : Joseph Lister's quest to transform the grisly world of Victorian medicine
Fitzharris, Lindsey
Paper Book
Winner, 2018 PEN/E.O. Wilson Prize for Literary Science Writing Short-listed for the 2018 Wellcome Book Prize A Top 10 Science Book of Fall 2017, Publishers Weekly A Best History Book of 2017, The Guardian "Warning: She...
The great influenza : the epic story of the deadliest plague in history
Barry, John M.
Paper Book
No disease the world has ever known even remotely resembles the great influenza epidemic of 1918. Presumed to have begun when sick farm animals infected soldiers in Kansas, spreading and mutating into a lethal strain as troops carried it to Europe, it exploded across the world with unequaled...
The good nurse : a true story of medicine, madness, and murder
Graeber, Charles.
Paper Book
After his 2003 arrest, the media dubbed registered nurse Charlie Cullen "The Angel of Death." But Cullen was no mercy killer or simple monster. He was a favorite son, husband, beloved father, best friend, and celebrated caregiver implicated in the deaths of as many as 300 patients -- perhaps the...
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,...
Bellevue : three centuries of medicine and mayhem at America's most storied hospital
Oshinsky, David M.
Ebook
From a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian comes a riveting history of New York's iconic public hospital that charts the turbulent rise of American medicine. Bellevue Hospital, on New York City's East Side, occupies a colorful and horrifying place in the public imagination: a den of...
The Black Angels : the untold story of the nurses who helped cure tuberculosis.
Smilios, Maria
Paper Book
Winner of the Christopher Award 2024 NPR Science Friday Best Summer Beach Reads 2024 Gotham Book Finalist 2024 NASW Science in Society Journalism Award Finalist 2024 PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize Finalist 2024 "An incredible story...the writing is phenomenal." -...
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
Paper Book
A New York Times 2016 Notable Book The definitive history of the successful battle to halt the AIDS epidemic--from the creator of, and inspired by, the seminal documentary How to Survive a Plague. A riveting, powerful telling of the story of the...
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.
Paper Book
Nowhere is there another lab like Dr. Bill Bass's: On a hillside in Tennessee, human bodies decompose in the open air, aided by insects, bacteria, and birds, unhindered by coffins or mausoleums. At the "Body Farm," nature takes its course, with corpses buried in shallow graves, submerged...
The occasional human sacrifice : medical experimentation and the price of saying no
Elliott, Carl
Paper Book
The Occasional Human Sacrifice is an intellectual inquiry into the moral struggle that whistleblowers face, and why it is not the kind of struggle that most people imagine. Carl Elliott is a bioethicist at the University of Minnesota who was trained in medicine as well as philosophy. For...
Smile : the story of a face
Ruhl, Sarah
Paper Book
* 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 mystery of the exploding teeth : and other curiosities from the history of medicine
Morris, Thomas
Paper Book
"Delightfully horrifying."--Popular Science One of Mental Floss's Best Books of 2018 One of Science Friday's Best Science Books of 2018 This wryly humorous collection of stories about bizarre medical treatments and cases offers a unique portrait of a bygone era in...
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...
Black Death at the Golden Gate : the race to save America from the bubonic plague
Randall, David K.
Paper Book
For Chinese immigrant Wong Chut King, surviving in San Francisco meant a life in the shadows. His passing on March 6, 1900, would have been unremarkable if a city health officer hadn't noticed a swollen black lymph node on his groin--a sign of bubonic plague. Empowered by racist pseudoscience,...
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,...
Doctored : the disillusionment of an American physician
Jauhar, Sandeep
Audiobook
Hoping for the stability he needs to start a family, Sandeep Jauhar, an attending cardiologist, accepts a position at a massive teaching hospital on the outskirts of Queens. With a decade's worth of elite medical training behind him, he is eager to settle down and reap the rewards of countless...
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...
Blood Farm : the explosive big pharma scandal that altered the AIDS crisis
McGoogan, Cara
Paper Book
Shortlisted for the Lukas Book Prize Named a Best Book of the Year by The Financial Times A stunning investigation.­­--Publishers Weekly How a miracle treatment turned deadly and changed the course of the...

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