A linked collection of personal essays in which the author describes living with schizophrenia and related diagnoses, linking firsthand memoir to discussion of clinical diagnosis, treatment, and the social realities of mental illness.

A first-person account by Suleika Jaouad of surviving serious illness and the aftermath, tracking the author's time as a patient and the challenges of rebuilding life afterward. The book situates medical experience within social and psychological questions about identity, belonging, and self-recovery.

A neurosurgeon and writer confronts a diagnosis of advanced lung cancer and records the transition from clinician to patient. The book links scenes from medical training and surgical practice to reflections on meaning, identity, and what makes life worth living when time is suddenly limited.

A first-person memoir that follows a woman raised in a survivalist, home‑schooled household who leaves that insular world to attend college and later pursue advanced academic study.

A sweeping, literary account of cancer treated as a historical subject: how clinicians, researchers, and institutions have identified, named, studied, and attempted to treat cancer over decades and centuries.

A first-person memoir by Chanel Miller recounting her sexual assault at Stanford in 2015 and the consequences that followed, including the legal case People v. Turner. The book traces the personal aftermath, public attention, and interactions with the justice system as the author reclaims voice and identity.

A personal memoir about the author's relationship with her mother and how food—especially shopping and cooking at a Korean grocery—carries memory and cultural connection.

A first-person memoir tracing the author's journey from an abusive childhood through competitive swimming, substance use, and sexual exploration toward eventual stability in adult life.

Lucy Grealy recounts her life before and after a childhood diagnosis of Ewing's sarcoma, describing the medical treatments that altered her face and the social and emotional consequences that followed.

A nonfiction letter from Ta‑Nehisi Coates to his teenage son that explains what it feels like to be Black in the United States.

A biographical memoir by Paula Fox that collects memories and impressions from her early life and career as an American novelist. The book orients around formative childhood experiences and episodes from a writer’s life, using anecdote and recollection to sketch how personal history shaped a literary trajectory.

A first-person account of the year after Joan Didion's husband died, recording the small, persistent thoughts and rituals that accompany sudden bereavement. The narrative tracks how memory, habit, and formal thinking shape a surviving spouse’s attempt to understand loss and the quotidian aftermath of grief.