KRISTAN HIGGINS
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR
Wondering what to read next?
Hello there, reader! If you've finished all of my books and are wondering what to read next, check out some of my favorite reads by clicking on the buttons below. I love sharing my favorite reads with the world, and while I read and listen to some books that don’t wow me, I choose not to review those.
xox,
Kristan
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Non-Fiction
This Is Going to Hurt: Secret Diaries of a Junior Resident by Adam Kay
I’m a sucker for doctor memoirs, and read just about every one every written, but this one really stole my heart. Adam Kay is a British doctor—an obstetrician—and his stories of patients, colleagues and the vagaries of the National Health Service and his hospital will make you wheeze with laughter sometimes and cry at others. He has a gift for encapsulating life and death events with both humor, intelligence and compassion. A quick read, wickedly funny, kind-hearted and with a perfect dash of bitterness that makes it completely captivating and real.
Educated by Tara Westover
Holy guacamole, what a story! A memoir of a woman who never set foot in a classroom until she went to college. Growing up in a Mormon survivalist family in Idaho, Tara both adored her family and suffered greatly from their isolation from the rest of the world. I listened to her narrate this book, and I think it was even better that way. You won’t forget this story. Ever.
Being Mortal by Atul Gawande
This book tackles a question every person will have to confront someday: how do you want to die? Dr. Gawande is a fantastic, vibrant storyteller, whether he’s talking about his 109-year-old grandfather checking his farm by horseback, or how one doctor transformed a nursing home into a vibrant place of life and beauty. The book excoriates the American healthcare system for pouring money into medical care and procedures that do nothing to improve the patient’s quality or length of life, and asks the most important questions we’ll all have to answer someday. A unique mix of humor, fact, science for non-scientists and inspiration to live and die well.was perfection.
Bare Minimum Parenting: The Ultimate Guide to Not Quite Ruining Your Child by James Breakwell
Oh, parents! Read this book and free yourself from the blood sport that parenting has become! With humor, insight and honesty, smart-ass James Breakwell tells you what no other parenting book has the guts to say — relax. You and the kids will be just fine.
When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi
A memoir of a neurosurgeon’s residency and his discovery that he has cancer, this book is tragic, graceful, honest and fascinating. Dr. Kalanithi talks openly about the pressure doctors are under to obfuscate with patients, how mistakes are made, the grueling training required to become a neurosurgeon and the personal toll it takes. As his skills increase, so does his kindness and empathy as he faces patients and families with grave illness. The tragic irony is that, at age 36, he learns he has stage IV lung cancer. His desire to live battles with what he knows as a physician, and what he wants as a husband, father and son. But to me, the most powerful part of the book is the epilogue, written by Dr. Lucy Kalanithi, Paul’s wife. The grace, eloquence and strength of both husband and wife are nothing short of miraculous. This is a book I’ll never forget.
Maybe You Should Talk to Someone by Lori Gottlieb
I seem to be on a kick of reading about psychologists. This is a warm, funny, touching memoir about Lori Gottlieb, television executive turned medical student turned psychologist (some people are more blessed with brains than others). Lori, a successful therapist, decides to seek out some professional help for herself after her fiancé dumps her unexpectedly. Her own dawning realizations are interspersed with chapters about her clients…Julie, the young woman who finds out she has an aggressive cancer after her honeymoon; John, the obnoxious, arrogant, successful television writer who hates everyone; Rita, an admittedly terrible mother, now in her sixties, contemplating suicide if her life doesn’t improve, but determined not to improve it. Throughout the book, we see patients who improve and patients who don’t…and how even a trained psychologist can get in—and eventually out of—her own way. Written with honesty and insight and humor, it’s one of the better memoirs I’ve read this year.
Fighting for Your Life: A Paramedic’s Story by Lysa Walder
British paramedics have all the fun, it seems, if you like high-stakes medical calls and bizarre illnesses. And I do! I love them! This book is easy to read, each chapter being a little vignette about a patient or a call. The author is a little pious at times in praise of her profession, and she borders on humble-bragging from time to time, but then again, she and her colleagues are literally saving lives, so she deserves to be. I really enjoyed the stories of her patients.