The Human Condition Curated

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Howard Trachtman on Spring by Ali Smith

"In a novel whose scope includes the most destructive features of modern society, Smith is able to infuse  small day-to-day events and artifacts with meaning and optimism."

Russell Teagarden on State of Wonder by Ann Patchett

"A broader perspective of this book shows how a novelist can probe science and generate questions about it, warn of possible negative implications, and generate reasonable doubt and skepticism."

Cortney Davis on I Watched You Disappear by Anya Krugovoy Silver

"These poems are beautifully crafted, often primal, and they touch the deepest reaches of personal illness and the shadow of mortality."

Gretl Lam on See You On the Other Side by Matthew Wong

"Matthew Wong was a rising young painter who died of suicide on October 2, 2019. … [There is a] sense of isolation and longing in the painting, depicted by the solitary figure on a barren ridge, looking back at a house in lush green surroundings."

Russell Teagarden on How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence by Michael Pollan

“From his research, interviews, and personal experiences, Pollan is enthusiastic about the potential benefits psychedelics offer individuals who are healthy or sick….”

Marilyn McEntyre on Love Thy Neighbor: A Muslim Doctor's Struggle for Home in Rural America by Ayaz Virji and Alan Eisenstock

“Responding to a shortage of doctors in rural areas in 2013, Dr. Virji, a Muslim, moved from the urban East coast to a small town in Minnesota. The story is nuanced and sometimes surprising in the way it shows how medicine offers an access route across tightly held political and religious boundaries.”

Tony Miksanek on Breaking & Mending: A Junior Doctor's Stories of Compassion and Burnout by Joanna Cannon

"A British physician-writer reflects on her topsy-turvy medical training emphasizing the mental and emotional burden of becoming a doctor."

Russell Teagarden on The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science by Richard Holmes

“The book is a reminder that the sciences and the arts are similar undertakings at their roots. ..Both seek to understand the world they inhabit and how to improve the plight of humans. “

Howard Carter on Dying of Whiteness: How the Politics of Racial Resentment Is Killing America's Heartland by Jonathan M. Metzl

“This is a rich, nuanced and complex book, a major contribution to public health, sociology, and American studies.”

Katherine Burke on Marrow: A Love Story by Elizabeth Lesser

“Throughout this memoir, Lesser seeks wisdom and guidance from colleagues and friends, offers lessons in how to be with a person who is sick and dying, and incorporates teachings from myriad spiritual and religious traditions.”

Russell Teagarden on The Genius of Marian by Anna Fitch and Banker White

"Pamela Steele White was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s disease at the age of sixty-one. A year later, in 2009, as her disease progression was evident, her son Banker, a documentary filmmaker, turned his camera on, and he kept it on until the autumn of 2012."

Howard Carter on Elderhood: Redefining Aging, Transforming Medicine, Reimagining Life by Louise Aronson

"Louise Aronson, a geriatrician, argues that we should create Elderhood as the third era of human aging….This new concept will allow us to re-evaluate the richness of this later time, its challenges as body systems decline, and, of course, the choices of managing death."

Carol Schilling on Ladysitting: My Year with Nana at the End of Her Century by Lorene Cary

"In Ladysitting, novelist and memoirist Lorene Carey writes candidly and reflectively about the year and a half she cared for her century-old, ferociously independent paternal grandmother."

Audrey Shafer on Salt in My Soul: An Unfinished Life by Mallory Smith

"This memoir is recommended for anyone touched by chronic illness and particularly cystic fibrosis."

Audrey Shafer on That Good Night: Life and Medicine in the Eleventh Hour by Sunita Puri

"Sunita Puri, a palliative care attending physician, educates and illuminates the reader about how conversations about end of life goals can improve quality of life, not just quality of dying…."

Joshua Jiang on The Farewell Directed by Lulu Wang

"The film draws on the real-life experiences of writer and director Lulu Wang, who, in 2013, found out that her grandmother had been diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. "

Martin Kohn on In Two Voices: A Patient and a Neurosurgeon Tell Their Story by Linda Clarke and Michael Cusimano

"About 20 Years ago, Linda E. Clarke, writer, professional storyteller and bioethics consultant was a neurosurgery patient of a colleague, Michael D. Cusimano.... [The book is] a lyrical co-memoir-- at times riveting, at other times sobering of their shared experience."

Cortney Davis on The Ninety-Third Name of God by Anya Krugovoy Silver

“This poetry collection is the first in a series of four books by Anya Silver--each volume continues to track her life through cancer treatment, remission, recurrence, and the anticipation of death.  ….. they are poems of hope and strength, poems that are truly gifts sent to us from the way stations of her difficult journey.” 


Shawn Thomas on Survivors by Arthur Pratt

"Survivors gets up close and personal to the 21-month battle against Ebola in West Africa, and shows how the common people of Sierra Leone risked everything to come together and fight back against an existential threat."


Sebastian Galbo on The Presentation on Egypt by Camille Bordas

"Bordas’ story examines how the fabrication of fiction, of refusing to accept reality, can either ease, or deepen, one’s suffering."



Carol Schilling on Bodies of Truth: Personal Narratives on Illness, Disability, and Medicine edited by Dinty Moore, Erin Murphy and Renée Nicholson

"Bodies of Truth gathers twenty-five essays about experiencing illnesses and disabilities from the perspectives of patients, healthcare professionals, and families."

Richard Ratzan on "I AM" by John Clare

"In [the poem]  the poet affirms his identity, his sorrows to date and ends with the expressed longing for a happier life in the presence of God and the solitude of Nature."

Audrey Shafer on The Unspeakable Mind: Stories of Trauma and Healing from the Frontlines of PTSD Science by Shaili Jain

"A psychiatrist and PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) specialist, Dr. Shaili Jain has written a book on PTSD and its many angles, from diagnosis to treatment to a larger perspective on cultural and historic influences on the development of traumatic stress."

Albert Howard Carter on The Scar: A Personal History of Depression and Recovery by Mary Cregan

"The Scar is a powerful, thoughtful, and moving book, part memoir about the author’s illness across some 30 years, part history of depression and its treatment and part essay to evoke cultural and personal values about sickness, suffering, health, and death."

Howard Trachtman on The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai

"Makkai succeeds in capturing the humanity and lethality of the HIV epidemic and the extreme consequences for the victims and the survivors alike."

Jack Coulehan on Headcase: LGBTQ Writers and Artists on Mental Health and Wellness edited by Stephanie Schroeder and Teresa Theophano

"Headcase explores themes of mental health, mental illness, and the experience of mental health care services by members of the LGBTQ community."


Joshua Jiang on The Florida Project directed by Sean Baker

“Director Sean Baker is known for his willingness to depict unglamorous lives on the silver screen, and The Florida Project stays the course by telling the story of transient, poor folk in a modern America teeming with excess.”

Guy Glass on The Collected Schizophrenias by Esmé Weijun Wang

“This is not a conventional chronological autobiography but rather essays that provide different approaches to the author’s experience of mental illness.“

Total Database Contents

  • 177 Visual Art Annotations
  • 2835 Literature Annotations
  • 274 Performing Art Annotations
  • 98 Artists
  • 1814 Authors
  • 157 Keywords