" At the age of thirty-six, on the verge of completing a decade's worth of training as a neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. One day he was a doctor treating the dying, and the next he was a patient struggling to live. And just like that, the future he and his wife had imagined evaporated. "When Breath Becomes Air" chronicles Kalanithi's transformation from a naïve medical student "possessed," as he wrote, "by the...

"'Regardless of how much money you have, your race, where you live, what religion you follow, you are going through something. Or you already have or you will. As Momma always said, Everybody's got something.' So begins beloved Good Morning America anchor Robin Roberts's new memoir in which she recounts the incredible journey that's been her life so far, and the lessons she's learned along the way. With grace, heart, and humor, she writes about overcoming...

"What are you reading?" That's the quest Will Schwalbe asks his mother, Mary Anne, as they sit in the waiting room of the Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. In 2007, Mary Anne returned from a humanitarian trip to Pakistan and Afghanistan suffering from what her doctors believed was a rare type of hepatitis. Months later she was diagnosed with a form of advanced pancreatic cancer. This is the inspiring story of a son and his mother, who start a "book club"...

"A divinity professor and young mother with a Stage IV cancer diagnosis explores the pain and joy of living without certainty. Thirty-five-year-old Kate Bowler was a professor at the school of divinity at Duke, and had finally had a baby with her childhood sweetheart after years of trying, when she began to feel jabbing pains in her stomach. She lost thirty pounds, chugged antacid, and visited doctors for three months before she was finally diagnosed...

"A decade ago, Dr. Alan Townsend's family received two unthinkable, catastrophic diagnoses: his 4-year-old daughter and his brilliant and vivacious wife developed unrelated, life-threatening forms of brain cancer. As he witnessed his young daughter fight during the courageous final months of her mother's life, Townsend - a lifelong scientist - was indelibly altered. He began to see scientific inquiry as more than a source of answers to a given problem,...

"A poignant and transporting cross-cultural love story set against the lush backdrop of the Sicilian countryside, where one woman discovers the healing powers of food, family, and unexpected grace in her darkest hour"--

Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor Southern tobacco farmer, yet her cells--taken without her knowledge--became one of the most important tools in medicine. The first "immortal" human cells grown in culture, they are still alive today, though she has been dead for more than sixty years. HeLa cells were vital for developing the polio vaccine; uncovered secrets of cancer and viruses; helped lead to in vitro...

"When Miss Norma was diagnosed with uterine cancer, she was advised to undergo surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy. But instead of confining herself to a hospital bed for what could be her last stay, Norma--newly widowed after nearly seven decades of marriage--rose to her full height of five feet and told her doctor, 'I'm ninety years old. I'm hitting the road.' Packing what she needed, Norma took off on an unforgettable cross-country journey with...

"In the summer after graduating from college, Suleika Jaouad was preparing, as they say in commencement speeches, to enter 'the real world.' She had fallen in love and moved to Paris to pursue her dream of becoming a war correspondent. The real world she found, however, would take her into a very different kind of conflict zone. It started with an itch--first on her feet, then up her legs, like a thousand invisible mosquito bites. Next came the exhaustion,...