• Book Reviews

    Brain on Fire: My Month Of Madness by Susannah Cahalan | Book Review

    Brain On Fire book cover

    Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness by Susannah Cahalan Genres: Illness, Medicine, Memoir, Non-Fiction Original Publication Date: 2012 Source: I purchased this book Goodreads Find the Author: Website, Goodreads, Amazon Brain on fire: One day in 2009, twenty-four-year-old Susannah Cahalan woke up alone in a strange hospital room, strapped to her bed, under guard, and unable to move or speak. A wristband marked her as a “flight risk,” and her medical records—chronicling a month-long hospital stay of which she had no memory at all—showed hallucinations, violence, and dangerous instability. Susannah had been on the threshold of a new, adult life: a healthy, ambitious college grad a few months into…

  • Book Reviews

    The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot | Book Review

    Henrietta Lacks book cover

    The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot Genres: Biography, Illness, Medicine, Science Original Publication Date: 2010 Source: I purchased this book Goodreads Find the Author: Website, Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads, Amazon, Instagram Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor Southern tobacco farmer who worked the same land as her slave ancestors, yet her cells—taken without her knowledge—became one of the most important tools in medicine: The first “immortal” human cells grown in culture, which are still alive today, though she has been dead for more than sixty years. HeLa cells were vital for developing the polio vaccine; uncovered secrets of cancer,…