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On the move: a life
By Oliver W Sacks. 2015
The brilliantly unconventional physician and writer recounts his experiences as a young neurologist in the early 1960s, first in California,…
where he struggled with drug addiction, and then in New York. With unbridled honesty and humour, Sacks writes about his love affairs, both romantic and intellectual; his guilt over leaving his family to come to America; his bond with his schizophrenic brother; and the writers and scientists who influenced him. Bestseller. 2015.The man who learned to walk three times: a memoir
By Peter Kavanagh. 2015
CBC journalist Peter Kavanagh was just an infant when he was diagnosed with paralytic polio and suffered permanent paralysis in…
the lower part of his left leg. As a child, Kavanagh endured painful medical procedures to even out the length of his legs, and experimental exercise techniques. He spent his youth in a leg brace and special footwear, isolating for a boy whose classmates ran freely in sneakers. His first lesson in walking was how to move while wearing such equipment. Throughout his life, as he developed a very successful career in public broadcasting, built a family, and indulged in his love of music and travel, Kavanagh underwent various surgeries to give him "normal" mobility. 2015.The reason I jump: the inner voice of a thirteen-year-old boy with autism
By David Mitchell, Naoki Higashida, Ka Yoshida. 2013
Naoki Higashida was only a middle-schooler when he began to write this book. Autistic and with very low verbal fluency,…
Naoki used an alphabet grid to painstakingly spell out his answers to the questions he imagines others most often wonder about him: why do you talk so loud? Is it true you hate being touched? Would you like to be normal? Naoki examines issues as diverse and complex as self-harm, perceptions of time and beauty, and the challenges of communication, and in doing so, discredits the popular belief that autistic people are anti-social loners who lack empathy. Bestseller. 2013.Nightingales: the extraordinary upbringing and curious life of Miss Florence Nightingale
By Gillian Gill. 2004
What Florence Nightingale did for British soldiers in Crimea is common knowledge, but what about what she did within her…
own family? Her father instilled bravery in his daughter, only to recoil when that bravery steeled her against a favourable marriage so that she could pursue her ambitions. As well, her descent into invalidism during the years of royal commissions on military sanitation and medical care, which were orchestrated by Florence herself, strained her already difficult relations with her sister and mother. 2004.Direct red: a surgeon's story
By Gabriel Weston. 2009
How does it feel to hold someone's life in your hands? What is it like to cut into someone else's…
body? How do you tell a beautiful young man who seems perfectly fit that he has only a few days left to live? What happens when, on a quiet ward late at night, a patient you've grown close to lifts the corner of his blankets and invites you into his bed? Female surgeon Gabriel Weston allows light to fall on the questions we have all wanted to ask about surgery. She also tells the truth about what it is like to be a woman competing in a world dominated by Alpha males, in the big-city hospitals of the twenty-first century. 2009.The king's speech
By Mark Logue, Peter Conradi. 2010
The grandson of Lionel Logue (1880-1953) uses his ancestor's diaries and correspondence to depict Australian-born Logue's life and his role…
as speech therapist for Albert, the duke of York, who was crowned King George VI on May 12, 1937. Bestseller. 2010.Life in my hands
By Wally Thomas. 1960
Until we have no tomorrows: "Dottie"
By Patricia Brudenell. 1999
The good listener: Helen Bamber, a life against cruelty
By Neil Belton. 1998
This is the extraordinary story of Helen Bamber, the founder of the Medical Foundation of the Victims of Torture. Since…
going to the Belsen concentration camp in 1945 to work with survivors, Helen Bamber's life has been devoted to working with people who have suffered the most appalling damage at the hands of others.Diary of a doctor: surgeon's assistant in Newcastle Upon Tyne 1826-1829
By Thomas Giordani Wright. 1998
The life of a young man in Newcastle 170 years ago is vividly described in these extracts. As assistant to…
Mr. McIntyre, Thomas had to cope with dreadful accidents and diseases - without the anesthetics, antiseptics and antibiotics that we take for granted.On giants' shoulders: great scientists and their discoveries from Archimedes to DNA
By Melvyn Bragg, Ruth Gardiner. 1998
Author and BBC radio host Melvyn Bragg invited many of the great modern interpreters of science to discuss the lives…
and work of 12 greats from Archimedes to Watson and Crick, and published the cream in On Giants' Shoulders. These are no dry transcripts, though; Bragg has a genius for selecting the most intriguing quotes and selections from both his guests and his subjects and weaving them into his own engrossing narrative. 1998.James Herriot: the life of a country vet
By Graham Lord. 1997
A biography of the vet James Herriot. Born Alf Wright in Sunderland, his family moved to Scotland and he qualified…
as a vet in Glasgow. This work reveals much about his early days in Glasgow and describes in detail the 50 years he spent working as a country vet in Yorkshire.C: because cowards get cancer too
By John Diamond. 1998
Shortly before his 44th birthday, John Diamond received a call from the doctor who had removed a lump from his…
neck. Having been assured for the previous 2 years that this was a benign cyst, Diamond was told that it was cancerous. This is the story of Diamond's life with, and without, a lump.Accueillir la folie
By Roger R Lemieux. 1995
Sea Trial: Sailing After My Father
By Brian Harvey. 2019
An adventure story set against the backdrop of a son trying to understand his fatherAfter a 25-year break from boating,…
Brian Harvey circumnavigates Vancouver Island with his wife, his dog, and a box of documents that surfaced after his father’s death. John Harvey was a neurosurgeon, violinist, and photographer who answered his door a decade into retirement to find a sheriff with a summons. It was a malpractice suit, and it did not go well. Dr. Harvey never got over it. The box contained every nurse’s record, doctor’s report, trial transcript, and expert testimony related to the case. Only Brian’s father had read it all — until now.In this beautifully written memoir, Brian Harvey shares how after two months of voyaging with his father’s ghost, he finally finds out what happened in the O.R. that crucial night and why Dr. Harvey felt compelled to fight the excruciating accusations.Defying limits: lessons from the edge of the universe
By Dave Williams. 2018
Dr. Dave Williams shares the events that have defined his life, showing us that whether we're gravity-defying astronauts or earth-bound…
terrestrials, we can all live an infinite, fulfilled life by relishing the value and importance of each moment. The greatest fear that we all face is not the fear of dying, but the fear of never having lived. Each of us is greater than we believe. And, together, we can exceed our limits to soar farther and higher than we ever imagined.Daughter of Family G: a memoir of cancer genes, love and fate /
By Ami McKay. 2019
The story of Ami McKay's connection to a genetic disorder called Lynch syndrome begins over seventy years before she was…
born and long before scientists discovered DNA. In 1895 her great-great aunt, Pauline Gross, a seamstress in Ann Arbor, Michigan, confided to a pathology professor at the local university that she expected to die young, like so many others in her family. Rather than dismiss her fears, the pathologist chose to enlist Pauline in the careful tracking of those in her family tree who had died of cancer. Pauline's premonition proved true--she died at 46--but because of her efforts, her family (who the pathologist dubbed 'Family G') would become the longest and most detailed cancer genealogy ever studied in the world. A century after Pauline's confession, researchers would identify the genetic mutation responsible for the family's woes. Now known as Lynch syndrome, the genetic condition predisposes its carriers to several types of cancer, including colorectal, endometrial, ovarian and pancreatic. In 2001, as a young mother with two sons and a keen interest in survival, Ami McKay was among the first to be tested for Lynch syndrome. She had a feeling she'd test positive: her mother's side of the family was riddled with early deaths and her own mother was being treated for the disease. When the test proved her fears true, she began living in "an unsettling state between wellness and cancer," and she's been there ever since. 2019.Falling for myself: a memoir /
By Dorothy Ellen Palmer. 2019
Born with congenital anomalies in both feet, then called birth defects, Dorothy Ellen Palmer was adopted as a toddler by…
a wounded 1950s family who had no idea how to handle the tangled complexities of adoption and disability. From repeated childhood surgeries to an activist awakening at university to decades as a feminist teacher, mom, improv coach and unionist, she tried to hide being different. But now, standing proud with her walker, she's sharing her journey. Navigating abandonment, abuse and ableism, she finds her birth parents and a new chosen family in the disability community. 2019.The last act of love: the story of my brother and his sister /
By Cathy Rentzenbrink. 2016
In the summer of 1990, two weeks before his GCSE results, which turned out to be the best in his…
school, Cathy Rentzenbrink's brother Matty was knocked down by a car on the way home from a night out, suffering serious head injuries. He was left in a permanent vegetative state. Over the following years, Cathy and her parents took care of Matty but there came a point at which it seemed the best thing they could do for Matty, and for themselves, was let him go. Cathy describes the unimaginable pain of losing her brother and the decision that changed her family's lives forever. 2016.Disfigured: On Fairy Tales, Disability, and Making Space
By Amanda Leduc. 2020
Fairy tales shape how we see the world, so what happens when you identify more with the Beast than Beauty?…
If every disabled character is mocked and mistreated, how does the Beast ever imagine a happily-ever-after? Amanda Leduc looks at fairy tales from the Brothers Grimm to Disney, showing us how they influence our expectations and behaviour and linking the quest for disability rights to new kinds of stories that celebrate difference. ‘Leduc peels the flesh from the fairy tales we grew up loving and strips them down to their skeletons to skilfully reveal how they influence the way we think about disability. She contrasts the stories we have with the ones we wish we had, incorporating her own life. Her wisdom lands like a punch in the heart, leaving a sizable dent that reshapes how we see tales we’ve been telling for centuries. She also – and this is the best part – suggests how we might tell new fairy tales, how we can forge new stories.’ – Adam Pottle, author of Voice ‘A unique and dazzling study … a revolutionary approach to understanding why we are drawn to fairy tales and how they shape our lives.’ – Jack Zipes, author of Grimm Legacies ‘Each chapter is a gem, but the kind of gem that turns into a knife, into a mirror, into a portal. Leduc’s real magic? That she transforms her readers as surely as any world.’ – Mira Jacob, author of Good Talk