Illness Fiction

Seventeen-year-old Flora Banks has no short-term memory. Her mind resets itself several times a day and has since the age of 10, when the tumor that was removed from Flora's brain took with it her ability to make new memories. That is, until she kisses Drake, her best friend's boyfriend, the night before he leaves town. Miraculously, this one memory breaks through Flora's fractured mind and sticks. Flora is convinced that Drake is responsible for restoring her memory and making her whole again.

Everything falls into place for high school junior Cat Morgan: perfect grades, three best friends, and of course, track dreams about to happen. But on November 7th, 2007, Cat’s life collapses with a brain aneurysm and a coma lasting seven days. When she wakes up, Cat discovers more adjustments than she bargained for, physically and mentally. Not only is Cat’s world changing, everyone around her changes too. Mary, the uptight, strict mother, turns into the protector. Rose, the naïve, childish sister, becomes the role of the mature sibling. And Ellie, the distant, shunned friend, must ...

With the assassination of Telyan’s king, the time for peace has passed. Determined to make up for his failure to procure the stardust, Helos finds work as a healer at Fendolyn’s Keep, the military garrison to which Telyan’s exiled royals—and half its civilians—have fled. Racing against the Fallow Throes’ ticking clock, he endeavors to repair his relationship with Prince Finley and fight off the gathering shadows in his head, as the base around him prepares for war.

Mental illness though can still carry a stigma. A case of ‘you’re not trying hard enough’, ‘or knuckling down and getting on with it’. But in more recent decades mental issues have come to be recognised as an illness, a disease rather than an affliction. We all remember horror stories of lobotomy’s and electric shock being used to ‘cure’ what society viewed as anti-social behaviour but illness, mental or physical is very real. Depression, schizophrenia, breakdown, psychosis are alarming events to have or to witness.

Ellie Haycock has always separated her life into sections: Ellie at home and Ellie at the hospital. At home, Ellie is a proud member of her high school’s speech and debate team alongside her best friend and her boyfriend. At the hospital, Ellie has a team of doctors and a mom who won’t stop posting about the details of her illness online. It’s not hard for Ellie to choose which of the two she prefers. But this latest hospital stay is different.

In the years since his daughter Vanessa moved to America to become a professor of philosophy, Alan Querry has never been to visit. He has been too busy at home in northern England, holding together his business as a successful property developer. His younger daughter, Helen - a music executive in London - hasn’t gone, either, and the two sisters, close but competitive, have never quite recovered from their parents’ bitter divorce and the early death of their mother. But then Vanessa’s new boyfriend sends word that she has fallen into a severe depression and that he’s worried for her safety....

The End of Miracles is a twisting, haunting story about the drastic consequences of a frustrated obsession. A woman with a complex past wants nothing more than to become a mother, but struggles with infertility and miscarriage. She is temporarily comforted by a wish-fulfilling false pregnancy, but when reality inevitably dashes that fantasy, she falls into a depression so deep she must be hospitalized.

What if the dreaded world of Alzheimer's was also a world of emotional discovery? Eugenia Zukerman's poetry and simple prose, both heartbreaking and ultimately inspirational, ushers the listener into her world as she unflinchingly examines familial loyalties, moments from her past and present, and the need to face an uncertain future due to the diagnosis of a condition that she truly hopes "will remain unnamed."

Building on the tradition of Little Bee, Chris Cleave again writes with elegance, humor, and passion about friendship, marriage, parenthood, tragedy, and redemption. Gold is the story of Zoe and Kate, world-class athletes who have been friends and rivals since their first day of Elite training. They've loved, fought, betrayed, forgiven, consoled, gloried, and grown up together. Now on the eve of London 2012, their last Olympics, both women will be tested to their physical and emotional limits.

From a comic mastermind comes this brilliant collection of stories. Three teenagers believe they are witches. A woman defaces a local billboard. A bored landlord tries to influence his son's best friend. A cul-de-sac WhatsApp group discusses eggs at length. A heavily pregnant woman finds a way to time travel and a girl discovers joy on a stolen bicycle. Each tale paints a life in miniature and offers an escape chute from the catastrophes of modern life.

Eighteen-year-old Del is in a healthier place than she was a year and a half ago: She’s sober, getting treatment for her depression and anxiety, and volunteering at a suicide-prevention hotline. Her own suicide attempt is in the past, and living in San Francisco with her beloved aunt has helped her see a future for herself. But when Aunt Fran is diagnosed with terminal cancer, Del’s equilibrium is shattered. She’s dedicated herself to saving every life she can, but she can’t save Fran.

Beautiful and magnetic, Catherine, a.k.a. “Maman,” smokes too much, drives too fast, laughs too hard, and loves too extravagantly, and her daughter Violaine wouldn’t have it any other way. But when Maman is hospitalized after a third divorce and a breakdown, everything changes. As the story of Catherine’s own traumatic childhood and adolescence unfolds, the pieces come together to form an indelible portrait of a mother as irresistible as she is impossible, as triumphant as she is transgressive.

Formula 1 driver Dev Anderson’s career is on the line. After a social media disaster leaves him with an angry team and sponsors threatening to jump ship, he needs someone to help save his image. At a party in Monaco, he bumps into the woman who can fix it all. There’s just one problem: she’s his best friend’s little sister. And, okay, maybe there’s another problem—he kissed her last year and hasn’t been able to stop thinking about it since.

A History of the Present Illness takes listeners into overlooked lives in the neighborhoods, hospitals, and nursing homes of San Francisco, offering a deeply humane and incisive portrait of health and illness in American today....In the tradition of Oliver Sacks and Abraham Verghese, Aronson's writing is based on personal experience and addresses topics of current social relevance. Masterfully told, A History of the Present Illness explores the role of stories in medicine and creates a world pulsating with life, speaking truths about what makes us human.

”When I was little I believed in Jesus and Santa, spontaneous combustion, and the Loch Ness Monster. Now I believe in science, statistics, and antibiotics.” So says 17-year-old Zac Meier during a long, grueling leukemia treatment in Perth, Australia. A loud blast of Lady Gaga alerts him to the presence of Mia, the angry, not-at-all-stoic cancer patient in the room next door. Once released, the two near-strangers can't forget each other, even as they desperately try to resume normal lives.

Cancer stole everything from Ceelie - her peace of mind, her self-image, perhaps even her 23-year marriage to her college sweetheart, Nate. Without the support of Darlene, her quirky elderly friend, she may not have been able to endure so much loss. So when Darlene’s own prognosis turns dire, Ceelie can’t refuse her seemingly impossible request - to find a WWII paratrooper named Cal, the father who disappeared when Darlene was an infant, leaving a lifetime of desolation in his wake.

Volleyball was my way out. So now, instead of trying to get away from my small town, I’m just trying to escape the pain. I don’t know how, but I went from never-been-kissed to kissing two guys in a week. Somehow I got the attention of the sweet guy with a sunshine smile and Kellum freaking Watts. And now I have to make a choice between the guy who will dream of a different future with me and the one I’ve been dreaming about. The problem is, it’s hard to think of the future when you’re just trying to survive the present.

Simone Garcia-Hampton is starting over at a new school, and this time things will be different. She's making real friends, making a name for herself as student director of Rent, and making a play for Miles, the guy who makes her melt every time he walks into a room. The last thing she wants is for word to get out that she's HIV-positive, because last time...well, last time things got ugly.

Mike Welles had everything under control. He was a good student, an outfielder on the baseball team, a good son, a loyal friend. But that was before. There's a voice in his head. A friend, trying to help him regain control. More than that: The voice can guide him to become better and stronger than he was before, to rid his life of everything holding him back. To figure out who he is again. If only Mike will listen.

In medical school, Paul Farmer found his life’s calling: To cure infectious diseases and to bring the lifesaving tools of modern medicine to those who need them most. Tracy Kidder’s magnificent account shows how one person can make a difference in solving global health problems through a clear-eyed understanding of the interaction of politics, wealth, social systems, and disease.