Books like Illness as Method

Loved Illness as Method by Jayjit Sarkar? Here are 9 books with the same pull, and why each one fits.

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9 books

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1Illness as Metaphor
Illness as Metaphor
Susan Sontag
A classic critical essay on how cultures use illness as a figure of speech, which connects directly to the title's idea of illness as a lens.
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2The Cancer Journals
The Cancer Journals
Audre Lorde
A personal and political account of living with breast cancer that questions how illness is talked about and treated.
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3The Undying
The Undying
Anne Boyer
A memoir and essay work on cancer that mixes personal experience with reflection on writing, care and the body.
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4An Unquiet Mind
An Unquiet Mind
Kay R. Jamison
A memoir of living with bipolar disorder by a clinical psychologist who also writes about the history of mood disorders.
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5Prozac Nation
Prozac Nation
Elizabeth Wurtzel
A memoir of depression and youth that became a widely read account of mental illness in the 1990s.
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6Intoxicated by My Illness
Intoxicated by My Illness
Anatole Broyard
A collection of essays by a critic who writes about his own prostate cancer and the way doctors and language shape illness.
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7Sick
Sick
Porochista Khakpour
A memoir of chronic illness that examines how illness changes identity and how medicine and culture respond to it.
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8Autobiography of a Face
Autobiography of a Face
Lucy Grealy
A memoir of growing up with facial disfigurement that treats appearance, pain and self-image as subjects of reflection.
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9The Empathy Exams
The Empathy Exams
Leslie Jamison
A set of essays on pain, illness and the act of witnessing other people's suffering, written with close attention to language.
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