Howard Blue's

Health

Nobody told me when I was born that the price of admission was mortality. Sigh. At age 68 I have also learned that even though I might keep it for a good while, my body was not going to stay in the shape that it was in when I was 19. If we and our loved ones do have to suffer illnesses, there is clearly comfort in communion with others about these misfortunes. I read Elizabeth Cohen's beautiful but sad account of her father's Alzheimer's, The Family on Beartown Road: A Memoir of Love and Courage just a few years after my own family experienced the problem. But it's a good read for anyone.

To read reviews about a book or order it, click on its title. To quickly reach one of the subtopics immediately below, click on it.

Addictions (Drug, Misc., Sexual)

Behrman, Andy. Electroboy: A Memoir of Mania . Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2003. A confessional memoir about author's use of drugs, his manic depression, working as a prostitute and his involvement in art forgeries.

Cameron, Julia. Floor Sample . Tarcher, 2007. Ex-wife of Martin Scorsese battles alcohol and drug abuse.

Erlbaum, Janice. Have You Found Her: A Memoir. Villard, 2008. Woman volunteers at shelter and is duped by 19 year old addict.

Holden, Kate. In My Skin . Arcade Publishing, 2006. Australian honors student, hooked on heroin, becomes prostitute.

Leleux, Robert. The Memoirs of a Beautiful Boy . St. Martin's Press, 2009. Coming of age memoir by gay man whose mother was addicted to shopping and plastic surgery.

Moore, Patrick. Tweaked: A Crystal Meth Memoir . Kensington, 2006. About both the ecstatic liberating effects and the paranoia and self-destructive that accompany Crystal meth addiction.

Rao, Cheeni. In Hanuman's Hands: A Memoir . HarperOne, 2009. The author attributes to divine intervention that he successfully overcomes his drug addiction.

Sheff, David. Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey Through His Son's Addiction . Mariner Books, 2009. A father's story of his bright and athletic son's drug addiction.

Sheff, Nic. Tweak: Growing Up on Methamphetamines . Houghton Mifflin, 2008.

Silverman, Sue William. Love Sick: One Woman's Journey through Sexual Addiction . W.W. Norton & Co., Inc., 2008. Author's stay in an inpatient clinic for female sex addicts.

Stahl, Jerry. Permanent Midnight: A Memoir . Process, 2005. About the author's rise from writing for sex oriented magazines to becoming a prime-time television writer. In the process, he becomes a junkie, and loses his family and almost himself.

Wurtzel, Elizabeth. More, Now, Again: A Memoir of Addiction . Simon & Schuster, 2003. A Ritalin addict struggles through rehabilitation.

Aging

Ackerman, Diane. Dawn Light: Dancing with Cranes and Other Ways to Start the Day . W.W. Norton & Co., Inc., 2009. Award-winning poet's meditations on life.

Athill, Diana. Somewhere Towards the End: A Memoir . W.W. Norton & Co., Inc., 2009. Retired literary editor on life and old age.

Shulman, Alix Kates. A Good Enough Daughter: A Memoir . Schocken, 2000. The author of Memoirs of an Ex-Prom Queen writes her memories of the end of her parents' lives.

Stern, Gerald. What I Can't Bear Losing: Notes from a Life . W.W. Norton & Co., Inc., 2003. A poet's collection of autobiographical and spiritual stories including some from his Pittsburgh childhood, his stint in the military, his visits to Europe.

Weinberg, Janet Amalia. Still Going Strong: Memoirs, Stories, and Poems about Great Older Women . Routledge, 2005.

AIDS & Other Auto Immune Diseases

Black, Roxanne. Unexpected Blessings . Avery, 2008. 15 yr old girl is diagnosed with lupus.

Broadbent, Patricia, Romanowski, Patricia, Broadbent, Hydeia. You Get Past the Tears: A Memoir of Love and Survival . Villard, 2002. Woman adopts baby from drug-addicted mother; child has AIDS.

Manguso, Sarah. The Two Kinds of Decay: A Memoir . Picador, 2009. Young woman is diagnosed with auto-immune disease CIDP.

Menadue, David. Positive: Living with HIV/AIDS . Allen and Unwin, 2003.

Pisani, Elizabeth. The Wisdom of Whores: Bureaucrats, Brothels and the Business of AIDS . W.W. Norton & Co., Inc., 2009. On ten years of working in HIV prevention agencies.

Thomas, Lee. Turning White: A Memoir of Change . Momentum Books, 2007. African-American broadcaster suffers from vitiligo, which turns his skin white.

Alcoholism

Anderson, Allen. Memoir of an Alcoholic American Spy. Arbor Books, 2006.

Burroughs, Augusten. A Wolf at the Table: A Memoir . St. Martin's Press, 2008. On the author's childhood with an alcoholic father.

Alzheimer's Disease

Cohen, Elizabeth. The Family on Beartown Road: A Memoir of Love and Courage . Random House, 2007. Beautifully written account of single-parent juggling care for both toddler and Alzheimer afflicted father. Howard's Pick

Davidson, Ann. A Curious Kind of Widow: Loving a Man with Advanced Alzheimer's . Daniel and Daniel, 2006.

Edwards, Caterina. Finding Rosa: A Mother with Alzheimer's, a Daughter in Search of the Past . Greystone, 2010.

Graboys, Thomas MD. Life in the Balance: A Physician's Memoir of Life, Love, and Loss with Parkinson's Disease and Dementia. 2009.

Miller, Sue. The Story of My Father: A Memoir. Random House, 2007. Daughter cares for Alzheimer-afflicted father.

Thorndike, John. The Last of His Mind: A Year in the Shadow of Alzheimer's. Swallow Press, 2009. Son writes of his father's decline.

Arthritis

Felstiner, Mary. Out of Joint: A Private and Public Story of Arthritis . University of Nebraska Press, 2005.

Asperger's Syndrome

Page, Tim. Parallel Play: Growing Up with Undiagnosed Asperger's . Doubleday, 2009.

Robison, John Elder. Look Me in the Eye: My Life with Asperger's . Three Rivers Press, 2008.

Autism

Gaston, Lynn and Gaston, Randy. Three Times the Love: Finding Answers and Hope for Our Triplets with Autism . Avery, 2009.

Greenfeld, Karl Taro. Boy Alone: A Brother's Memoir . Harper, 2009. Life with autistic brother.

Hughes, Robert. Running With Walker: A Memoir . Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2003. Couple discover their baby boy has autism.

Isaacson, Rupert. The Horse Boy: A Father's Quest to Heal His Son . Little, Brown and Company, 2009. Family travels to Mongolia to seek help for autistic son.

Mont, Daniel. A Different Kind of Boy: A Father's Memoir on Raising a Gifted Child With Autism . Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2002.

Morgan-Thomas, Corrine and Brozek, Gary. Miracle Run: Watching My Autistic Sons Grow Up and Take Their First Steps Into Adulthood . Berkley Trade, 2009.

Savarese, Ralph James. Reasonable People: A Memoir of Autism and Adoption: On the Meaning of Family and the Politics of Neurological Difference . Other Press, 2007. Family adopts abused/autistic boy.

Bipolar Disorder

Hornbacher, Marya. Madness: A Bipolar Life . Mariner Books, 2009.

Weiland, Mary. Fall to Pieces: A Memoir of Drugs, Rock-n-Roll and Mental Illness . William Morrow, 2009. Fashion model wife of rock star Scott Weiland, of Stone Temple Pilots and Velvet Revolver, on her bipolar disorder and drug abuse.

Blindness

Griffin, John Howard. Scattered Shadows: A Memoir of Blindness and Vision . Orbis Books, 2004.

Kuusisto, Stephen. Eavesdropping: A Memoir of Blindness and Listening . W.W. Norton & Co., 2006. By a blind poet.

Borderline Personality Disorder

Reiland, Rachel. Get Me Out Of Here: My Recovery from Borderline Personality Disorder . Hazelden, 2004.

Cancer - Blood/Leukemia

Bird, Leonard. Folding Paper Cranes: An Atomic Memoir . University of Utah Press, 2005. Man is exposed to atomic bomb and develops bone/blood cancer.

Rieff, David. Swimming in a Sea of Death: A Son's Memoir . Simon and Schuster, 2008. Son chronicles mother's battle with cancer.

Robinson, Deagara. Determination: Recapturing My Life from Leukemia . Tate Publishing, 2009.

Shotel, Jay and Shotel, Sue. It's Good to Know a Miracle: Dani's Story: One Family's Struggle with Leukemia . Gordian Knot, 2008.

Cancer - Brain

Gunther, John. Death Be Not Proud: A Memoir . Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2007.

Hurley Brant, Mary Jane. When Every Day Matters: A Mother's Memoir on Love, Loss and Life . Simple Abundance Press, 2008.

McGraw, Tug, Yaeger, Don and McGraw, Tim. Ya Gotta Believe!: My Roller-Coaster Life as a Screwball Pitcher and Part-Time Father, and My Hope-Filled Fight Against Brain Cancer . Signet, 2005.

O'Kelly, Gene. Chasing Daylight: How My Forthcoming Death Transformed My Life . McGraw Hill, 2005.

Ward, William. Traveling Light: Walking the Cancer Path . Lindisfarne Books, 2008.

Cancer - Breast

Bueti, Cathy. Breastless in the City: A Young Woman's Story of Love, Loss, and Breast Cancer . Kaplan Publishing, 2009.

Favre, Deanna and Hunt, Angela Elwell. Don't Bet against Me!: Beating the Odds Against Breast Cancer and in Life . Tyndale House Publishers, 2007.

Gabriel, Sarah. Eating Pomegranates: A Memoir of Mothers, Daughters, and the Breast Cancer Gene . Doubleday Canada, 2009.

Lewis, Shelley. Five Lessons I Didn't Learn From Breast Cancer And One Big One I Did . New American Library, 2008.

Norton, Meredith. Lopsided: How Having Breast Cancer Can Be Really Distracting . Viking Adult, 2008.

Queller, Jessica. Pretty Is What Changes: Impossible Choices, The Breast Cancer Gene, and How I Defied My Destiny . Spiegel and Grau, 2008.

Shea, Suzanne Strempek. Shelf Life: Romance, Mystery, Drama, and Other Page-Turning Adventures from a Year in a Bookstore . Beacon Press, 2005. Author works in bookstore while recovering from breast cancer.

Shockney, Lillie. Stealing Second Base: A Breast Cancer Survivor's Experience and Breast Cancer's Story . Jones and Bartlett Publishers, 2007.

Cancer - General

Brenner, Marie. Apples and Oranges: My Brother and Me, Lost and Found . Picador, 2009. A sister on the care and support she gave a difficult older brother through cancer; a hard-won testament to the power of love and forgiveness in families.

Romm, Robin. The Mercy Papers: A Memoir of Three Weeks . Scribner, 2009. Daughter chronicles the last three weeks in her cancer-stricken mother's life.

Small, David. Stitches: A Memoir . W.W. Norton & Co., Inc., 2009. Graphic novel memoir about growing up with untreated cancer and parents who don't care enough to notice.

Varmus, Harold. The Art and Politics of Science . W.W. Norton & Co., Inc., 2009. By the Nobel Prize winning cancer biologist.

Cancer - Lung

Barry, Dan. Pull Me Up: A Memoir . W.W. Norton & Co., Inc., 2005. Irish-Catholic childhood on Long Island and the author's mother's death from lung cancer.

Beaver, Jim. Life's That Way: A Memoir . Putnam, 2009. Man chronicles his wife's battle against lung cancer.

Karbo, Karen. The Stuff of Life: A Daughter's Memoir . Bloomsbury USA, 2004. Daughter cares for father stricken with lung cancer.

Cryogenics

Johnson, Larry. Frozen: My Journey into the World of Cryonics, Deception, and Death . Vanguard Press, 2009. By the whistleblowing COO of Alcor Life Extension Foundation.

Deafness

Davis, Lennard. My Sense of Silence: Memoirs of a Childhood with Deafness . University of Illinois Press, 2000.

Death and Grief

Hood, Ann. Comfort: A Journey Through Grief . W.W. Norton & Co., Inc., 2009. On the death of author's five-year-old daughter.

Kubler-Ross, Elizabeth and Gold, Todd. The Wheel of Life: A Memoir of Living and Dying . Scribner, 1998. Author's memoir about facing her own death.

McCracken, Elizabeth. An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination . Little, Brown and Co., 2008. Author's first child dies in utero days before his expected birth.

Wilson, Barbara A. and Michael John. First Year, Worst Year: Coping with the Unexpected Death of our Grown-Up Daughter . Wiley, 2004. Survival during and after bereavement.

Depression

Brampton, Sally. Shoot the Damn Dog: A Memoir of Depression . W.W. Norton & Co., Inc., 2008. Creator of Elle U.K. reveals ongoing struggle with depression and alcohol.

Shields, Brooke. Down Came the Rain: My Journey Through Postpartum Depression . Hyperion, 2006.

Wurzel, Elizabeth. Prozac Nation, A Memoir . Riverhead Trade, 1995. A former music critic on her ten years of severe depression including her therapists and excessive of sex and drug use that led to her being treated with Prozac in 1990.

Diabetes

Calladine, Carole. Second Story Woman: A Memoir of Second Chances . Bird Dog Publishing, 2007. The author confronts experiences a midlife crisis and develops type II diabetes at the same time.

Down Syndrome

Groneberg, Jennifer Graf. Road Map to Holland: How I Found My Way Through My Son's First Two Years With Down Syndrome . NAL Trade, 2008.

Eating Disorders

Lauren, Jenny. Homesick: A Memoir of Family, Food, and Finding Hope . Washington Square Press, 2005. Ralph Lauren's niece recalls how the pressures of her beautiful family contributed to her development of eating disorders.

Leith, William. The Hungry Years: Confessions of a Food Addict . Gotham, 2005. An interview with Robert Atkins leads a food-obsessed journalist to gain control over his eating disorder.

Pai, Ann. My Other Body: A Memoir of Love, Fat, Life, and Death. Sunspot Press, 2006. Author and sister's story of struggles with eating disorders and morbid obesity.

Slattery, Kathryn. Lost & Found: One Daughter's Story of Amazing Grace . GuidepostsBooks, 2008. Strained parental relationships lead author to bulimia and spiritual guidance.

Watson, CL. Eating the Shadow: A Memoir of Loss and Recovery by CLWatson . Fenn Books and Media, 2006. On the author's struggle with bulimia and her brother's obesity.

Environmental Health Issues

Antonetta, Susanne. Body Toxic: An Environmental Memoir . Counterpoint, 2002. On a chemical plant's effects on local residents' health problems.

McMasters, Kelly. Welcome to Shirley: A Memoir From an Atomic Town . PublicAffairs, 2009. In part a memoir of childhood, but also an account of the toxic relationship between Brookhaven National Laboratory's nuclear reactor neighboring Long Island towns.

Epilepsy

B., David. Epileptic . Pantheon, 2006. Graphic/Illustrated memoir

Crane, Amy E. Rejoice in the Light : A Woman's Journey Out of the Mystery of Epilepsy . Agape Publishing, 2000.

Howard Blue's

Health

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