"I think books are like people, in the sense that they’ll turn up in your life when you most need them.”
― Emma Thompson
Welcome to our Chronic Collection of beautiful books with writers who shed important light on the realities of living and working with chronic illness.
Immerse yourself in the wisdom and companionship they offer you.
The Lady's Handbook for Her Mysterious Illness
In her harrowing, darkly funny, and unforgettable memoir, Sarah Ramey recounts the decade-long saga of how a seemingly minor illness in her senior year of college turned into a prolonged and elusive condition that destroyed her health but that doctors couldn't diagnose or treat. Worse, as they failed to cure her, they hinted that her devastating symptoms were psychological.
A book for all misunderstood conditions—autoimmune illnesses, fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome, chronic pain, and many more.
Unwell Women
Elinor Cleghorn became an unwell woman ten years ago. She was diagnosed with Lupus, an autoimmune disease after a long period of being told her symptoms were anything from psychosomatic to a possible pregnancy. As Elinor learned to live with her unpredictable disease she turned to history for answers, and found an enraging legacy of suffering, mystification, and misdiagnosis.
Elinor traces the almost unbelievable history of how medicine has failed women by treating their bodies as alien and other, often to perilous effect.
The Invisible Kingdom
A silent epidemic of chronic illnesses afflicts tens of millions of Americans: these are diseases that are poorly understood, frequently marginalized, and can go undiagnosed and unrecognized altogether.
Renowned writer Meghan O’Rourke delivers a revelatory investigation into this elusive category of “invisible” illness that encompasses autoimmune diseases, post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome, and now long COVID, synthesizing the personal and the universal to help all of us through this new frontier.
Unseen
Jacinta Parsons was in her twenties when she first began to feel unwell – the kind of unwell that didn’t go away. Doctors couldn’t explain why, and Jacinta wondered if it might be in her head. But she could barely function, was frequently unable to eat or get out of bed for days, and gradually turned into a shadow of herself.
Eventually she got a diagnosis, but knowing she had Crohn’s disease wouldn’t stop her life from spiralling into a big mess of doctors, hospitals and medical disasters. With chronic illness her constant companion, she had to learn how to function in a world set up for the well.
Living Human
In this wellness memoir, Flic takes us through her deeply personal journey, from struggling with pain and Crohn's disease as a dancer to finding her voice and stepping into her most human, raw, and powerful self as an entrepreneur and wellness advocate.
Flic's story contains nuggets of wellness and mindset wisdom wrapped up in lessons from her journey that are sometimes dark, other times deeply funny, and always inspiring. You will be uplifted, but you will also discover the sustainable wellness steps you can take to make your life a profound and healthy one.
Of Gold & Dust
Samantha Wills started her self-titled jewellery company on the kitchen table of her share house in the eastern suburbs of Sydney when she was just 21 years old. While her rise to the global stage looked meteoric to many, Samantha has said 'It took me twelve years to become an overnight success.
In her unique, confessional tone, Samantha tells the intimate details of her life, business and living with endometriosis, sharing her truths with a rare rawness and vulnerability.
Tiffany Yu takes readers on a revelatory examination of disability--how to unpack biases and build an inclusive and accessible world.
As the Asian American daughter of immigrants, living with PTSD, and sustaining a permanent arm injury at age nine, Tiffany Yu is well aware of the intersections of identity that affect us all. She navigated the male-dominated world of corporate finance as an investment banker at Goldman Sachs before founding Diversability, an award-winning community business run by disabled people building disability pride, power, and leadership, and creating the viral Anti-Ableism series on TikTok.
Organized from personal to professional, domestic to political, Me to We to Us, The Anti-Ableist Manifesto frames context for conversations, breaks down the language of ableism, identifies microaggressions, and offers actions that lead to authentic allyship.
THE CHRONICLE
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