A collection of true tales of medical mystery and detection from the author's "Annals of Medicine" in the "New Yorker."

This is the first book to offer a critical analysis of one variant of the mystery story or novel—the use of a physician as the major detective. There is little difference between a medical “case study” and a mystery story. The book reviews the works of major authors, from R. Austin Freeman, Helen McCloy, Josephine Bell, and H.C. Bailey, to Patricia Cornwell, Kathy Reichs, Aaron Elkins, and Colin Cotterill, with briefer reviews of minor authors. It also addresses historical (fictional) physician detectives, psychological detectives, and physician detective nonfiction. Physicians and health workers are avid readers of detective fiction and will welcome this volume, which addresses their specific interests. Its critical analysis of books that have long been viewed as central to detective fiction will also appeal to fans of the mystery story.

A frank and friendly book explaining puberty and how to stay happy and confident as boys go through physical, psychological and emotional changes. Covers everything boys want to find out about, including moods and feelings, what happens to girls, diet, exercise, body image, sex and relationships, contraception, sexual health, self-confidence, drink and drugs, exam stress and cyberbullying.

Philip Roth's The Breast is a funny, fantastical story and a bizarre yet daring exploration of sex and subjectivity. David Kepesh wakes up one morning in the hospital, mysteriously altered. Through an endocrinopathic catastrophe of unprecedented proportions, he has been transformed into a 155-pound human female breast. Railing at the incomprehensible, he uses his intelligence to deny and resist the thing he has become. Ultimately, he must accept his fate.

For years after graduating from medical school, Dr. Clifton K. Meador assumed that symptoms of the body, when obviously not imaginary, indicate a disease of the body—something to be treated with drugs, surgery, or other traditional means. But, over several decades, as he saw patients with clear symptoms but no discernable disease, he concluded that his own assumptions were too narrow and, indeed, that the underlying basis for much of clinical medicine was severely limited. Recounting a series of fascinating case studies, Meador shows in this book how he came to reject a strict adherence to the prevailing biomolecular model of disease and its separation of mind and body. He studied other theories and approaches—George Engel's biopsychosocial model of disease, Michael Balint's study of physicians as pharmacological agents—and adjusted his practice accordingly to treat what he called "nondisease." He had to retool, learn new and more in-depth interviewing and listening techniques, and undergo what Balint termed a "slight but significant change in personality." In chapters like "The Woman Who Believed She Was a Man" and "The Diarrhea of Agnes," Meador reveals both the considerable harm that can result from wrong diagnoses of nonexistent diseases and the methods he developed to help patients with chronic symptoms not defined by a medical disease. Throughout the book, he recommends subsequent studies to test his observations, and he urges full application of the scientific method to the doctor-patient relationship, pointing out that few objective studies of these all-important interactions have ever been done.

National Book Award Finalist: This look at the science of the female body is “a tour de force . . . wonderful, entertaining and informative” (TheNew York Times Book Review). From a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist who covers science for the New York Times, Woman is an essential guide to everything from organs to orgasms and hormones to hysterectomies. With her characteristic clarity and insight, Natalie Angier cuts through still-prevalent myths and misinformation surrounding the female body, the most enigmatic of evolutionary masterpieces. In addition to earning a nomination for the National Book Award, Woman was named one of the best books of the year by NPR, the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, and People, among others. “One knows early on one is reading a classic—a text so necessary and abundant and true that all efforts of its kind, for decades before and after it, will be measured by it.” —Los Angeles Times “Ultimately, this grand tour of the female body provides a new vision of the role of women in the history of our species.” —The Washington Post

Epidemic cinema remains an enduring genre of contemporary film, ranging from medical dramas to post-apocalyptic thrillers. Using a vast filmography, Zaniello not only details the incredible variety of epidemics and their role in popular culture, but also demonstrates how epidemics, as a rule, have been confronted without proper preparation or deployment of resources in different forms of media. Therefore, Epidemic Films to Die For is the first and the only book that extensively analyzes the history and deployment of films and TV series towards a chronicle of epidemic films. In addition to providing an overview of how widespread disease and illness have been historically depicted via film and media, this book skillfully contextualizes the contemporary ongoing moment in which filmmakers and producers grapple with the cultural imaginary surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic.

When her family falls apart, fourteen-year-old Zoe feels like her whole world is going to pieces. Zoe's mother takes her kids away from their father, a fisherman who ships out to Alaska, and moves them to a run-down farmhouse she's inherited in the Midwest. Zoe's stuck -- in more ways than one. Surrounded by strangers and a sea of prairie grass, she loses her bearings. A brush with the law lands Zoe in a work program at a local nature preserve. But the work starts to ground and steady her. When she meets a wild boy who shares her love of untamed places, it seems he might help Zoe find her way. Or is he too lost, too damaged himself? Funny and poignant, sharp-eyed and real, this is a portrait of a girl looking for her own true self and a place she can call home.

Readers drawn to Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, Laurie Garrett's The Coming Plague, or Theo Colburn's Our Stolen Future will appreciate this work by Thomas Kerns as well. The growing epidemics of chemically induced illnesses from long-term, low-dose exposure to toxicants in both developed and developing nations are being studied by serious researchers. Questions are being raised as to how societies will deal with these new problems. Kerns's book is the first to directly address the ethical dimension of managing environmental health and ubiquitous toxicants (such as solvents, pesticides, and artificial fragrances). The work includes recent medical literature on chronic health effects from exposure to toxicants and the social costs of these disorders; relevant historic and human rights documents; recommendations for public policy and legislation; and primary obstacles faced by public health advocates. College instructors and students, victims of chemical sensitivity disorders, public health workers, scientists, and policymakers who are interested in the challenge of these emerging epidemics will find Kerns's text highly informative.