The Human Condition Curated
What's New
Russell Teagarden on Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
“The novel recasts Charles Dickens’ David
Copperfield for modern day as a literary take on the opioid addiction
crisis in the U.S. during the 1990s and 2000s.”
Guy Glass on Sinkhole by Juliet Patterson
“The book was written with a poet’s sensibility. At
the same time, the author’s copious research into suicide lends it substance.”
Sebastian Galbo on Nineteenth Century Popular Fiction, Medicine and Anatomy: The Victorian Penny Blood and the 1832 Anatomy Act by Anna Gasperini
“Anna Gasperini builds on existing scholarship by examining
how Victorian ‘penny blood’ literature depicted working-class readers’
anxieties concerning medical dissection following the 1832 Anatomy Act.”
Jacalyn Duffin on What She Left Behind by Ellen Wiseman
“[The novel] is inspired by the real 1995 discovery of 400
suitcases that once belonged to former patients of the Willard State Hospital
in New York’s Finger Lakes region.”
Howard Trachtman on Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
"
Zevin invokes games as emblematic of how
human beings grapple with the unexpected challenges of life – the triumphs and
the tragedies."
Jacalyn Duffin on Bookends: A Family Doctor Explores Birth, Death, and Tokothanatology by Susan Boron
"..
the repeated message is one we’ve heard many times before,
offered in a refreshing way: the importance of empathy and of listening to the
patient's wishes in birthing and in dying."
Sebastian Galbo on Medical Bondage: Race, Gender, and the Origins of American Gynecology by Deidre Cooper Owens
“Owens argues that the emergence, practice, and professionalization
of American gynecology in the 19th century were inextricably enmeshed with the
institution of slavery and discourses of biological racism."
Gerard Brungardt on Severance directed by Ben Stiller
“Severance is a genre defying series that enables us
to see a contemporary cultural construct -- work-life balance -- from new and
different vantage points.”
Sebastian Galbo on The Last Strawberry by Rita Swan
“Swan’s memoir by a former Christian Scientist is important
for readers interested in the intersection of medical ethics and religion.”
Russell Teagarden on The Mouth Agape directed by Maurice Pialat
“The writer and director, Maurice
Pialat, was known for his raw portrayals of human behavior and the complexities
in human relationships.”
Jack Coulehan on Physician-Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia edited by Shelton Rubenfeld and Daniel Sulmasy
“[The book] is an unusual collection of scholarly essays in
that it combines essays about Nazi euthanasia with others that deal with
contemporary PAD (Physician Aid in Dying) and questions whether there might be
a relationship between the two.”
Jacalyn Duffin on Station Eleven by Emily Mandel
“[The novel] raises questions about basic human
nature--fear, greed, cruelty, and decency–and about the fragility of our world
and the technologies on which we depend.”
Guy Glass on Strangers to Ourselves: Unsettled Minds and the Stories That Make Us by Rachel Aviv
“[The book] provides a fascinating glimpse at people whose
psychiatric conditions cannot be fully understood through existing paradigms….The
reader is left with an appreciation for the complexity of the human condition.”
Jacalyn Duffin on Hurdy Gurdy by Christopher Wilson
“The title may refer to the cyclic foibles and futility of
human responses to the inevitable (and equally cyclic) return of pestilence.”
Sebastian Galbo on The Unseen Shore: Memories of a Christian Science Childhood by Thomas Simmons
“Thomas Simmons narrates the physical, emotional, and
spiritual anguish of growing up in, and later leaving, the Christian Science
Church.“
Jacalyn Duffin on The Way of All Flesh by Ambrose Parry
“The novel is a riveting, quickly moving tale that
accurately portrays the atmosphere of mid-nineteenth-century medicine and
social life.”
Howard Trachtman on Wayward by Dana Spiotta
“[The] book is emotionally engaging. There is a keen
awareness of the unsteady world in which we live and in which the story
unfolds.”
Sebastian Galbo on The Science of Starving in Victorian Literature, Medicine, and Political Economy by Andrew Mangham
“[The book] examines how Victorian writers drew
upon the era’s medicine and physiology to represent the physical realities
of starvation.”
Jack Coulehan on Stuck by Heidi J. Larson
“[The author] approaches vaccine rejection as a complex
moral and cultural phenomenon, rather than as a simple issue of ignorance or a
marginal point-of-view.”
Gretl Lam on Rx/Museum: 52 Essays on Art and Reflection in Medicine by Lyndsay Hoy and Aaron Levy
"
Rx/Museum is a wonderful example of collaboration and
integration of the arts, humanities, and medicine to teach or renew a sense of
empathy, connection, and new perspective.”
Tony Miksanek on Barefoot Doctor: A Novel by Can Xue
“With a dream-like setting and spiritual tone that includes
psychics and deceased ancestors, this affectionate story explores the joy and
duty of being a healer.”
Jacalyn Duffin on Cancer Confidential: Backstage Dramas in the Radiation Clinic by Charles Hayter
“Physician-historian-playwright Charles Hayter describes his
encounters with cancer, as a doctor and as a son, and how the experience
changed him as a person.”
Sebastian Galbo on Vanished in Hiawatha: The Story of the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians by Carla Joinson
“Readers
interested in the history of psychiatry, institutionalization, Indigenous
studies, or early twentieth-century politics will appreciate Joinson’s meticulous
portrait of Canton Asylum.”
Jacalyn Duffin on The End of Her: Racing against Alzheimers to solve a murder by Wayne Hoffman
“
A sensitive pathography and a “true-crime” history combined..."
Tony Miksanek on Two Nurses, Smoking by David Means
“Tenderness trickles throughout this tale of two nurses who
are desperately in need of some healing themselves.”
Vincent Palusci on The Death of Innocents: A True Story of Murder, Medicine, and High-Stakes Sciencey by Richard Firstman and Jamie Talan
“[The book} is essential reading for those wanting to learn
about the history of SIDS, apparent life-threatening events, fatal child abuse,
postpartum depression, and what was called Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy.”
Howard Trachtman on Behold the Dreamers by Imbolo Mbue
“The central image of seeking the American dream is powerful
in its own right, and the novel highlights how elusive that dream can be.”
Jack Coulehan on Editing Humanity by Kevin Davies
“Close
reading of this book is well worth the effort, especially since it deals with a
technology that is bound to raise profound ethical issues in future medical
practice."
Carol Schilling on Crying in H Mart: A Memoir by Michelle Zauner
“While Michelle Zauner’s remarkable memoir is an expression
of her profound grief after her mother died, her story simultaneously reflects
on her complicated relationship with the woman she called Umma and with her own
Korean-American identity.”
Jacalyn Duffin on Wild Boy by Jill Dawson
“Young doctor Jean-Marc Itard is serving in the Paris home
for deaf-mute children. When a ‘wild boy’ without speech is found near a
village in Aveyron, France, Itard accepts the challenge of educating him…”
Danielle Madsen on The Inkblots by Damion Searls
“[The book] is a comprehensive history of Rorschach’s life
and an overview of the use and influence of his psychiatric test over the past
century.”
Howard Trachtman on The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity by David Graeber and David Wengrow
“The book takes on the accepted grand narrative of human
development, namely, a linear evolution from a primordial state of innocence
and equality to a society in which hierarchy and inequality are hard wired into
existence.”
Cortney Davis on My Borrowed Face by Stacy Nigliazzo
“The poems in this collection were written during the Covid
pandemic; they speak of the toll the virus has taken and continues to take not
only on patients but, in these poems, on the caregivers--specifically the poet.”
Jack Coulehan on A Matter of Death and Life by Irvin and Marilyn Yalom
“The
book is full of practical wisdom about communication, compromise, caregiving,
support, and love during the experience of terminal illness.”
Kristen Dammeyer on Life According to Sam directed by Andrea Nix Fine and Sean Fine
“The film is an inspiring and emotional portrayal of a
family who has devoted their lives to tackling progeria while simultaneously
embracing life and living the present day to its fullest.”
Jack Coulehan on The Sleeping Beauties and Other Stories of Mystery Illness by Suzanne O’Sullivan
“Suzanne O’Sullivan, an Irish neurologist, set out in 2018
to study children suffering from resignation syndrome, a project that led her
to investigate other outbreaks of mysterious illness around the world.”
Shefali Sood on The Dropout directed by Elizabeth Meriwether
"The Dropout is
a jam-packed miniseries documenting the real-life story of Elizabeth Holmes.
While the story is true, it is almost unbelievable."
Devon Zander on Site Fidelity by Claire Boyles
“The stories explore the way in which the characters
interact with the myth of open land, untouched environment, and home in the
West, but do not shy away from all that myth can often obscure - poverty,
hardship, crime, radicalism.”
Jack Coulehan on The Invention of Medicine: From Homer to Hippocrates by Robin Lane Fox
“..
a difficult but rewarding read for anyone interested in the origins of the
Hippocratic tradition in medicine.”
Howard Trachtman on When We Cease to Understand the World by Benjamin Labatut
“Nothing will
quite prepare you for the literary world that Labatut has invented… the
characters lived through the turbulent first third of the 20th
century when quantum mechanics revolutionized the traditional understanding of
physics.”
Guy Glass on The Urge: Our History of Addiction by Carl Erik Fisher
“[The book] is a comprehensive history of addiction from
ancient times to the present day. It is also a memoir of the author’s
own struggle with addiction.”
Jack Coulehan on Ward Rounds by K. Dale Beernick MD
"These
poems, in no small part, provide a poetic peeks into the history of mid-20th
century medicine."
Lucy Bruell on The First Wave directed by Matthew Heineman
“[The film’s] focus on the suffering of the patients and the
emotional stress on those who care for them will be of interest to everyone
living in this life-changing time of the pandemic.”
Carol Schilling on Every Last Breath: A Memoir of Two Illnesses by Joanne Jacobson
“Jacobson’s brilliant essays refuse to let us ignore our
shared vulnerability or the unpredictability of living in a body, as she once
thought she could.”
Russell Teagarden on The Shapeless Unease: A Year of Not Sleeping by Samantha Harvey
“The book is a deep and ranging analysis of insomnia causes,
consequences, and fixes in the midst of daily life as Harvey experiences it.”
Howard Trachtman on The Genetic Lottery: Why DNA Matters for Social Equality by Kathryn Paige Harden
“In this important new book, Kathryn Harden provides staunch
support for the key role of genetics in health, disease, and in human well-being.”
Akbar Salman and Ellen Yin on Fauci directed by John Hoffman and Janet Tobias
"What is most striking throughout the film is the
sense that what makes Fauci a great man and what has made him so influential is
not simply his knowledge or his intellect, but his unfailing sense of duty to
his fellow man..."
Sebastian Galbo on Tangles: A Story About Alzheimer's, My Mother, and Me by Sarah Leavitt
"There is much in Tangles that might offer solace to
current (or former) caregivers who struggle to give loved ones with Alzheimer’s
a quality, dignified end-of-life experience.”
Tony Miksanek on The End of Days by Bernard MacLaverty
“The tale is a stunning and sorrowful envisioned snapshot of
what the end of life might have felt like for an artist-protagonist during the
1918 influenza pandemic.”
Christine Olagun-Samuel on Darwin's Hunch by Christa Kuljian
“The book has utmost relevance today, as we continue to
understand how vestiges of racial thought, bias and discrimination may still
live on in medicine albeit in a more insidious manner.”
Guy Glass on One Friday in April by Donald Antrim
“One Friday in April is a book that will give reassurance
to people who have endured suicidal thoughts that if they persist they will get
better.”
Russell Teagarden on Seeing Red by Lina Meruane
“The story involves the interplay of serious clinical
events, family and social relationships, challenges with daily activities, and
diminishing medical options.”
Steven Field on Mysterious Medicine: The Doctor-Scientist Tales of Hawthorne and Poe edited by L. Kerr Dunn
“Some of us think of “doctor fiction” as a modern
genre. This anthology definitely calls that notion into question.”
Audrey Shafer on Daughter by Cortney Davis
“The collection is a tribute to familial love, and
ultimately to one particular person, separated by the worsening pandemic, and
dealing with the ravages of metastatic breast cancer.”
Russell Teagarden on Dopesick created by Danny Strong
“To adapt to the format of a dramatic series, Danny Strong,
the creator, sets the series around the fiendish Purdue Pharma sales and
marketing practices and the people they affected directly.”
Jacalyn Duffin on The King's Anatomist by Ron Blumenfeld
“Centered on the mysterious death and lost grave of the
great anatomist, this enjoyable novel is anchored in nodal points generated by
scholarly literature.”
Howard Trachtman on Bewilderment by Richard Powers
“[The author] examines the question whether neurobiology can
help people achieve empathy, potentially even merge with another person.”
Guy Glass on How To Be Depressed by George Scialabba
“The bulk of the book is an edited selection of the author’s
psychiatric records from 1969 to 2016…The notes document changes in psychiatry
over the past half century."
Howard Trachtman on Blood in the Water: The Attica Uprising of 1971 and its Legacy? by Heather Ann Thompson
“This book is a reminder that it will take an extended and
concerted effort to achieve equal treatment for citizens in the penal system
and in the health system.”
Steven Field on Oli Otya? Life and Loss in Rural Uganda directed by Lucy Bruell
“The film is a moving and thought-provoking look at the
beating heart of medicine with its engaging soundtrack and its from-the-inside
views of rural and village life.”
Martin Kohn on Practice by Richard Berlin
“Evident in the poems is a person experiencing much more
than medical/psychiatric practice, but a full cornucopia of life: his love of
art, music, food, nature, and the people he shares this bounty with.”
Russell Teagarden on This is Your Mind on Plants by Michael Pollan
“Pollan continues pursuing his interest in the human drive
for altering consciousness through mind-altering substances and marries this
interest with his passion for plants and gardening.”
Devon Zander on The Impatient Dr. Lange by Seema Yasmin
“Like many public health crusaders, Lange understood the
connection between societal and historical factors and the spread and
development of disease, specifically HIV and AIDS.”
Guy Glass on Everything is Fine by Vince Granata
"[The author] dedicates
himself to understanding schizophrenia and the shortcomings in our mental
health care system, and, finally, writes this book."
Jacalyn Duffin on The Conjure-Man Dies by Rudolph Fisher
"Fisher was an African-American physician-author whose clever
novel contains only African-American characters, including the physician and
the detective."
Cortney Davis on Queen of the Sugarhouse by Constance Studer
“Even when the author is writing of life outside the hospital or the sickroom, her knowledge of our fragile bodies and vulnerable minds are evident--as is her understanding of the complexities of human existence and desire.”
Steven Field on The Expendable Man by Dorothy Hughes
“Hughes’ ability to create the setting and build the uneasiness is superb literary craft… prepare to have everything you’ve thought about the story suddenly change with the breathless rapidity of a rug being pulled out from under you.”
Cortney Davis on Freud on My Couch by Richard Berlin
“Berlin writes as a physician, husband, father, friend, lover of music--and as a man who understands that he and his patients share a common and fragile humanity.”
Russell Teagarden on Should We Stay or Should We Go by Lionel Shriver
“Readers will appreciate the book for the questions it raises and the thinking it inspires...[about] taking measures to avoid devastating enfeeblement and infirmity during old age.”
Sebastian Galbo on An Enemy of the People by Satyajit Ray
“Ray depicts physicians who struggle to share scientific truth under the weight of public vilification and skullduggery.”
Jack Coulehan on Secret Wounds by Richard M. Berlin
“Richard Berlin’s poems are revelatory. They reveal the healing power of attention, empathy, witness, and love.”
Devon Zander on The Empathy Exams by Leslie Jamison
“The book explores the human condition and what it means to relate to one another with caring despite the interpersonal complications that can often arise.”
Tony Miksanek on The Ministry of Bodies by Seamus O'Mahony
“This unusual memoir - both blunt and philosophical - contemplates topics deeply relevant to all physicians.”
Sebastian Galbo on Imagining Vesalius: An Ekphrastic, Scholarly and Literary Celebration of the 1543 De Humani Corporis Fabrica of Andreas Vesalius by Richard Ratzan
“[The author] brings together scholars and creative writers to celebrate the legacy of the sixteenth-century Flemish physician and anatomist, Andreas Vesalius and his landmark text, De Humani Corporis”
Howard Trachtman on East West Street and Ratline by Philippe Sands
“In these two linked books, [the author] tells an extraordinary real life story that combines personal experience and world history into a narrative that is as powerful as any novel.”
Carol Schilling on Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution by Directors Nicole Newnham and James LeBrecht
“Crip Camp is in part a multi-voiced memoir told from the too-rare perspective of teenagers with disabilities about a shared formative experience and, simultaneously, a needed documentary about disability civil rights campaigns.”
Russell Teagarden on Dileesh Pothan's Joji
“Covid-19 has has scorched societies at all levels all
around the world. Will anyone believe a movie is set in the current time period
without signs of Covid-19? Dileesh Pothan thinks not.”
Howard Trachtman on Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi
“Is
Religion or Science best able to deal with the psychological problems that can
arise over a lifetime? Yaa Gyasi’s powerful new book aims to answer these
perennial questions.”
Steven Field on THE GREAT INFLUENZA: A Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History by John Barry
“For anyone seeking to understand the 1918 influenza pandemic not only from a scientific and medical historical standpoint, but also with an appreciation of the political and sociocultural milieu in which it took place, you can’t do much better than Barry’s work.”
Mark Clark on The Arrow Tree: Healing from Long COVID by Phyllis Weliver
“[The] memoir points its readers in the direction of a safe passage to the home of our natural world, where, in finding union with that world, we may experience healing not only from COVID but from habits of the heart that have left us more broken than we know.”
Russell Teagarden on Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem
“From this novel, we get Lethem’s view of how Tourette syndrome can affect everyday life and how it can progress; how people with the syndrome can think about it; the balance people seek between benefits and side effects of drug therapies; and whether it’s acceptable to think that some verbal and physical tics are funny.”
Tony Miksanek on Parenthesis by Élodie Durand
"The author-artist's black and white illustrations are potent in portraying her struggle to understand the seizures and her attempt to communicate their impact on her life.”
Lucy Bruell on Collective by Alexander Nanau
“By bringing public awareness to the critical shortcomings, corruption and politicization of the Romanian health care system, the filmmakers have created an important cautionary tale for other cities and countries who do not prioritize the health of their citizens.”
Total Database Contents
- 178 Visual Art Annotations
- 2961 Literature Annotations
- 296 Performing Art Annotations
- 100 Artists
- 1896 Authors
- 197 Keywords