Books like 'Better'
Readers who enjoyed Better by Atul Gawande also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
contemporary psychological medical personal-growth social-commentary philosophical
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The Existence Of Amy by Lana Grace Riva
Rated: 3.90 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsAmy has a normal life. That is, if you were to go by a definition of 'no obvious indicators of peculiarity', and you didn't know her very well. She has good friends, a good job, a nice enough home. This normality, however, is precariously plastered on top of a different life. A life that is Amy's real life. The only one her brain will let her lead... -
Like the Flowing River by Paulo Coelho
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsA breathtaking collection of reflections from one of the world's best loved storytellers, Paulo Coelho. In this riveting collection of thoughts and stories, Paulo Coelho, the author of 'The Alchemist', offers his personal reflections on a wide range of subjects from archery and music to elegance, traveling and the nature of good and evil... -
All In the Mind by Alastair Campbell
Rated: 3.75 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsAlastair Campbell’s powerful first novel is a gripping portrait of the strange dependency between patient and doctor. Martin Sturrock desperately needs a psychiatrist. The problem? He is one. Emily is a traumatized burn victim; Arta a Kosovan refugee recovering from a rape. David Temple is a long term depressive, while the Rt. Hon... -
Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End by Atul Gawande
Rated: 4.44 of 5 stars · 43 ratingsIs it time the medical profession rethought its approach to the old and terminally ill? In what way? Should doctors be trained to prepare people to die rather than simply be kept alive as long as possible? In Being Mortal, Atul Gawande addresses these questions and argues that an acceptance of mortality must lie at the heart of the way we treat the dying...Categorized as:
medical personal-growth philosophical social-commentary 21st-century aging audiobook contemporary -
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What We Don't Talk About When We Talk About Fat by Aubrey Gordon
Rated: 4.46 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsFrom the creator of Your Fat Friend, an explosive indictment of the systemic and cultural bias facing plus-size people that will move us toward creating an agenda for fat justice.Anti-fatness is everywhere...Categorized as:
social-commentary medical non-fiction feminism audiobook politics mental-illness psychological -
Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World – and Why Things Are Better Than You Think by Hans Rosling, Annemie de Vries
Rated: 4.35 of 5 stars · 41 ratingsFactfulness: The stress-reducing habit of only carrying opinions for which you have strong supporting facts.When asked simple questions about global trends—what percentage of the world’s population live in poverty; why the world’s population is increasing; how many girls finish school—we systematically get the answers wrong...Categorized as:
medical personal-growth social-commentary 21st-century audiobook classics contemporary fiction -
Le Livre de la joie: Le bonheur durable dans un monde en mouvement (L'art de la vie) by Dalai Lama XIV, Desmond Tutu
Rated: 4.36 of 5 stars · 31 ratingsTwo great spiritual masters share their own hard-won wisdom about living with joy even in the face of adversity. The occasion was a big birthday. And it inspired two close friends to get together in Dharamsala for a talk about something very important to them. The friends were His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. The subject was joy...Categorized as:
personal-growth philosophical social-commentary audiobook christian contemporary friendship humor -
Men, Women, and Worthiness: The Experience of Shame and the Power of Being Enough by Brené Brown
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsWe Are Enough: Engaging with the World from a Place of WorthinessCourse objectives:Summarize the differences and similarities between the experience of shame for men and women• Define guilt vs... -
The Body: A Guide for Occupants by Bill Bryson
Rated: 4.31 of 5 stars · 34 ratingsIn the bestselling, prize-winning A Short History of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson achieved the seemingly impossible by making the science of our world both understandable and entertaining to millions of people around the globe.Now he turns his attention inwards to explore the human body, how it functions and its remarkable ability to heal itself...Categorized as:
medical personal-growth 21st-century audiobook comedy contemporary fiction historical -
Humankind: A Hopeful History by Rutger Bregman
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 28 ratingsFrom the author of Utopia For Realists, a revolutionary argument that the innate goodness and cooperation of human beings has been the greatest factor in our successIf one basic principle has served as the bedrock of bestselling author Rutger Bregman's thinking, it is that every progressive idea -- whether it was the abolition of slavery, the advent of democracy, women's suffrage, or the... -
Humankind: A Hopeful History by Rutger Bregman
Rated: 4.32 of 5 stars · 28 ratingsFrom the author of Utopia For Realists, a revolutionary argument that the innate goodness and cooperation of human beings has been the greatest factor in our success... -
Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men by Caroline Criado Pérez
Rated: 4.28 of 5 stars · 36 ratingsImagine a world where your phone is too big for your hand, where your doctor prescribes a drug that is wrong for your body, where in a car accident you are 47% more likely to be seriously injured, where every week the countless hours of work you do are not recognised or valued.If any of this sounds familiar, chances are that you're a woman...Categorized as:
medical personal-growth social-commentary 21st-century ai audiobook contemporary female-author -
A Matter of Death and Life by Irvin D. Yalom, Marilyn Yalom
Rated: 4.39 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsA year-long journey by the renowned psychiatrist and his writer wife after her terminal diagnosis, as they reflect on how to love and live without regret.Internationally acclaimed psychiatrist and author Irvin Yalom devoted his career to counseling those suffering from anxiety and grief... -
Under the Skin: The Hidden Toll of Racism on American Lives and on the Health of Our Nation by Linda Villarosa
Rated: 4.43 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsFrom an award-winning writer at the New York Times Magazine and a contributor to the 1619 Project comes a landmark book that tells the full story of racial health disparities in America, revealing the toll racism takes on individuals and the health of our nation...Categorized as:
medical social-commentary non-fiction politics audiobook racism historical poc-author -
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Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science by Atul Gawande, Susanne Kuhlmann-Krieg
Rated: 4.26 of 5 stars · 31 ratingsIn gripping accounts of true cases, surgeon Atul Gawande explores the power and the limits of medicine, offering an unflinching view from the scalpel's edge. Complications lays bare a science not in its idealized form but as it actually is--uncertain, perplexing, and profoundly human.Complications is a 2002 National Book Award Finalist for Nonfiction...Categorized as:
medical social-commentary 21st-century audiobook contemporary death fiction non-fiction -
The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe: How to Know What's Really Real in a World Increasingly Full of Fake by Steven Novella
Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsAn all-encompassing guide to skeptical thinking in the popular "The Skeptics Guide to the Universe" podcast's dryly humorous, accessible style.It's intimidating to realize that we live in a world overflowing with misinformation, bias, myths, deception, and flawed knowledge...Categorized as:
personal-growth medical non-fiction philosophy psychological audiobook religion politics -
정의란 무엇인가 by Michael J. Sandel
Rated: 4.27 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsKorean edition of JUSTICE: What's the Right Thing to Do? by Michael J. Sandel, a Professor of Government at Harvard University. This book is based on the one of the most popular courses at Harvard. Praised by numerous media including BBS, New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today. Translated by Lee Chang Shin...Categorized as:
personal-growth philosophical social-commentary 21st-century adult audiobook book contemporary -
When the Air Hits Your Brain: Tales of Neurosurgery by Frank T. Vertosick Jr.
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 18 ratings"This book should be read by every medical student, doctor and present or potential patient. In other words, by all of us."--Dr. Bernie Siegel, author of Love, Medicine and MiraclesRule One for the neurologist in residence: "You ain't never the same when the air hits your brain." In this fascinating book, Dr... -
Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 37 ratingsJonathan Safran Foer spent much of his life oscillating between enthusiastic carnivore and occasional vegetarian. Once he started a family, the moral dimensions of food became increasingly important.Faced with the prospect of being unable to explain why we eat some animals and not others, Foer set out to explore the origins of many eating traditions and the fictions involved with creating them... -
Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life by Thich Nhat Hanh, Dalai Lama XIV
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 28 ratingsIn the rush of modern life, we tend to lose touch with the peace that is available in each moment. World-renowned Zen master, spiritual leader, and author Thich Nhat Hanh shows us how to make positive use of the very situations that usually pressure and antagonize us. For him a ringing telephone can be a signal to call us back to our true selves... -
Come as You Are: The Surprising New Science that Will Transform Your Sex Life by Emily Nagoski
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 28 ratingsAn essential exploration of why and how women’s sexuality works—based on groundbreaking research and brain science—that will radically transform your sex life into one filled with confidence and joy.Researchers have spent the last decade trying to develop a “pink pill” for women to function like Viagra does for men...Categorized as:
medical personal-growth social-commentary 21st-century adult audiobook book contemporary -
What I Mean When I Say I'm Autistic: Unpuzzling a Life on the Autism Spectrum by Annie Kotowicz
Rated: 4.42 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsIn this intimate and insightful mix of memoir and manifesto, Annie Kotowicz invites you inside the mind of an autistic woman, sharing the trials and triumphs of a life before and after diagnosis...Categorized as:
medical non-fiction psychological mental-illness disability contemporary female-author -
White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo, Michael Eric Dyson
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 40 ratingsThe New York Times best-selling book exploring the counterproductive reactions white people have when their assumptions about race are challenged, and how these reactions maintain racial inequality... -
Into the Magic Shop: A Neurosurgeon's Quest to Discover the Mysteries of the Brain and the Secrets of the Heart by James R. Doty
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsGrowing up in the high desert of California, Jim Doty was poor, with an alcoholic father and a mother chronically depressed and paralyzed by a stroke. Today he is the director of the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education (CCARE) at Stanford University, of which the Dalai Lama is a founding benefactor...Categorized as:
medical personal-growth audiobook contemporary fiction magic mental-illness non-fiction -
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Far from the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity by Andrew Solomon
Rated: 4.23 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsAndrew Solomon’s startling proposition in Far from the Tree is that being exceptional is at the core of the human condition—that difference is what unites us. He writes about families coping with deafness, dwarfism, Down's syndrome, autism, schizophrenia, or multiple severe disabilities; with children who are prodigies, who are conceived in rape, who become criminals, who are transgender...Categorized as:
medical personal-growth social-commentary 21st-century adult audiobook book children -
Love's Executioner and Other Tales of Psychotherapy by Irvin D. Yalom
Rated: 4.23 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsThe collection of ten absorbing tales by master psychotherapist Irvin D. Yalom uncovers the mysteries, frustrations, pathos, and humor at the heart of the therapeutic encounter...Categorized as:
medical personal-growth audiobook contemporary death existentialism fiction mental-illness -
Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression – and the Unexpected Solutions by Johann Hari
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 27 ratingsFrom the New York Times bestselling author of Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs, a startling challenge to our thinking about depression and anxiety.Award-winning journalist Johann Hari suffered from depression since he was a child and started taking antidepressants when he was a teenager...Categorized as:
medical personal-growth 21st-century audiobook contemporary journalism lgbtq mental-illness -
The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion by Jonathan Haidt, Simona Drelciuc
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 30 ratingsAn alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780307377906 can be found here.Why can’t our political leaders work together as threats loom and problems mount? Why do people so readily assume the worst about the motives of their fellow citizens? In The Righteous Mind, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt explores the origins of our divisions and points the way forward to mutual understanding... -
The War on the West by Douglas Murray
Rated: 4.28 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsAn Instant New York Times Bestseller!China has concentration camps now. Why do Westerners claim our sins are unique?It is now in vogue to celebrate non-Western cultures and disparage Western ones. Some of this is a much-needed reckoning, but much of it fatally undermines the very things that created the greatest, most humane civilization in the world...Categorized as:
social-commentary personal-growth politics non-fiction philosophy audiobook religion psychological -
Once a Warrior: How One Veteran Found a New Mission Closer to Home by Jake Wood
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 8 ratings"The book that America needs right now."--Tom Brokaw, journalist and author of The Greatest Generation"Jake Wood offers one of the most soaring definitions of service I've ever seen...
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