Reibstein, Janet. Staying Alive: A Family Memoir . Bloomsbury USA, 2003. Generations in a single family experience cancer.
Health/General (see also Careers/Doctors)
Cohen, Alice Eve. What I Thought I Knew: A Memoir . Viking Adult, 2009. The personal and medical odyssey of a mid-forties woman.
Dully, Howard and Fleming, Charles. My Lobotomy . Three Rivers Press, 2008.
Murdock, Maureen. Unreliable Truth: On Memoir and Memory . Seal Press, 2003.
Choy, Wayson. Not Yet: A Memoir of Living and Almost Dying . Doubleday Canada, 2009. Author suffers two heart attacks. Foster, Perry. Hands Upon My Heart: My Journey Through Heart Disease and Into Life . Discovery Publishing Co., 2007.Hollar, David. Mr. NewHeart New Heart: Heart Attack to Transplant and Beyond . Infinity Publishing, 2007.
McKee, Steve. My Father's Heart: A Son's Reckoning With the Legacy of Heart Disease . Da Capo Press, 2009.
O'Rourke, William. On Having a Heart Attack: A Medical Memoir . University of Notre Dame, 2006.
Perkins, Kelly. The Climb of My Life: Scaling Mountains with a Borrowed Heart . Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2007. Amateur mountain-climber does not let a heart transplant slow her down.
Silverstein, Amy. Sick Girl . Grove/Atlantic Press, 2007. Recipient of a heart transplant.
Bishop, Ted. Riding with Rilke: Reflections on Motorcycles and Books . W.W. Norton & Co., Inc., 2007. A professor leaves the University of Alberta for the University of Texas on his motorcycle and ends his journey after a collision breaks his back.
Brennan, Karen. Being with Rachel: A Personal Story of Memory and Survival . W.W. Norton & Co., Inc., 2002. Life after a motorcycle accident leaves author's daughter in a coma.
Kumin, Maxine. Inside the Halo and Beyond: The Anatomy of a Recovery . W.W. Norton & Co., Inc., 2001. A horse-riding accident breaks the author's neck.
Thomas, Abigail. A Three Dog Life . Harvest Books, 2007. Heartfelt portrait of author's husband, a victim of a hit-and-run who suffers from brain trauma and her relationship with him.
Doyle, Gloria Revilla. A Memoir: A Journey Not Chosen. Summerfield Press, 2004. Woman becomes a quadriplegic as a result of exploratory surgery.
Gilbert, Sandra M. Wrongful Death: A Memoir . W.W. Norton & Co., Inc., 1997. Death of the author's husband from medical error.
Mental Health /Mental Illness
Aurthur, Jonathan. The Angel and the Dragon: A Father's Search for Answers to His Son's Mental Illness and Suicide . HCI, 2002.
Bachrach, Nancy. The Center of the Universe: A Memoir . Knopf, 2009. Girl grows up with bipolar mother in an era when there was little understanding of the disease.
Barber, Charles. Songs from the Black Chair: A Memoir of Mental Interiors . University of Nebraska Press, 2005. Suffering with phobias and OCD propels author to become a psychiatrist treating the homeless mentally ill.
Cheney, Terri. Manic: A Memoir . Harper, 2009. Woman lives with bipolar disorder.
Erlbaum, Janice. Have Your Found Her: A Memoir. Villard, 2008. Woman volunteers at shelter and is duped by 19 year old addict.
Gordon, Emily Fox. Mockingbird Years: A Life In and Out of Therapy. Basic Books, 2001.
Kaysen, Susanna. Girl, Interrupted. Vintage, 1994. A woman's breakdown in her college years and her two subsequent years in a psychiatric hospital.
Kissing, Steve. Running from the Devil: A Memoir of a Boy Possessed . Crossroad Pub. Co., 2003. About a time in the author's childhood when he became convinced that his hallucinations were a sign of possession by the devil.
Sabotka, Cynthia M. Life is Like a Line - A Memoir of Moods, Medication, and Mania . Silver Lining Publishing, 2008. Living with bipolar disorder.
Saks, Elyn R. The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness . Hyperion, 2008. Professor of law and psychiatry suffers from paranoid schizophrenia.
Skloot, Floyd. In the Shadow of Memory . University of Nebraska Press, 2003. After being infected by a virus, author loses his memory and struggles to regain it.
Walls, Jeannette. The Glass Castle: A Memoir . Scribner, 2006. Writer comes to terms with her parents' eccentricities and homelessness.
Cohen, Richard M. Blindsided: Lifting a Life Above Illness: A Reluctant Memoir . Harper, 2004.
Franz, Jo. Soar Unafraid: Learning to Trust No Matter What . Tate, 2007.
Fraser, Marian Botsford. Requiem for My Brother . Greystone, 2006.
Lander, David L. Fall Down Laughing: How Squiggy Caught Multiple Sclerosis and Didn't Tell Nobody . Active Source, 2000.
Watson, CL. Eating the Shadow: A Memoir of Loss and Recovery . Fenn Books and Media, 2006. On the author helping her brother fight obesity.
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
Bailey, James. Man, Interrupted: Welcome to the Bizarre World of OCD, Where Once More is Never Enough . Mainstream Publishing, 2008.
Bell, Jeff. Rewind, Replay, Repeat: A Memoir of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder . Hazelden, 2007. Young man struggles with OCD.
Kant, Jared. The Thought that Counts: A Firsthand Account of One Teenager's Experience with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder . Oxford University Press, 2008.
Patterson, James. Against Medical Advice: One Family's Struggle with an Agonizing Medical Mystery . Little, Brown and Company, 2008. Family struggles with son's OCD and other issues.
Febos, Melissa. Whip Smart: A Memoir . St. Martin's Press, 2010.
Rapp, Emily. Poster Child: A Memoir . Bloomsbury, 2007. An amputee and former March of Times poster child on how she has dealt with her handicap.
Lefens, Tim. Flying Colors: The Story of a Remarkable Group of Artists and the Transcendent Power of Art . Beacon Press, 2003. A painter visits a school for students with various disabilities and then becomes obsessed with finding ways to help the students learn to express themselves, despite their disabilities.
Presley, Gary. Seven Wheelchairs, A Life beyond Polio . University of Iowa Press, 2008.
Axtell, Agnes. A Polio Memoir . Bookman Publishing, 2004. Family devotes itself to husband's struggle with polio.
Bernstein, Jane. Rachel in the World: A Memoir . University of Illinois Press, 2007. A mother on raising her mentally retarded daughter.
Luxenberg, Steve. Annie's Ghosts . Hyperion, 2009. Washington Post editor uncovers a secret about his mother's family: a borderline mentally disabled phantom aunt who had long ago been institutionalized in large part because of the era's attitude that such relatives were a source of family shame.
Flynn, Laura M. Swallow the Ocean: A Memoir . Counterpoint, 2009. Author recalls her mother's schizophrenia.
Wisniewski, Linda. Off Kilter: A Woman's Journey to Peace with Scoliosis, Her Mother, and Her Polish Heritage . Pearlsong Press, 2008.
Wolfe, Swain. The Boy Who Invented Skiing: A Memoir . St. Martin's Press, 2006. On a childhood in a Colorado tuberculosis sanitarium and move to the city.