Books like Flowers for Algernon

01

The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat

Oliver Sacks · Psychology

Oliver Sacks was a neurologist who thought in stories.

A kindred science fiction read.

02

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

Rebecca Skloot · Science

In 1951, a Black woman named Henrietta Lacks died of cervical cancer at Johns Hopkins Hospital.

Both dig into medical ethics.

03

Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End

Atul Gawande · Health

Being Mortal is Atul Gawande's investigation into why modern medicine is so bad at helping people die well.

A kindred science fiction read.

04

When Breath Becomes Air

Paul Kalanithi · Memoir

When Breath Becomes Air is Paul Kalanithi's account of his life before and after being diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer at 36, while completing his residency in neurosurgery at Stanford.

A kindred science fiction read.

05

Bad Pharma

Ben Goldacre · Health

Bad Pharma is Ben Goldacre's sustained indictment of the pharmaceutical industry's manipulation of clinical trial evidence, and of the regulatory and academic institutions that have failed to stop it.

Both dig into medical ethics.

06

Kafka on the Shore

Haruki Murakami · Literary fiction

Kafka on the Shore runs two parallel narratives that eventually, obliquely, converge.

Both dig into memory and loss.

07

Never Let Me Go

Kazuo Ishiguro · Literary fiction

Kathy H.

Both dig into memory and loss.

08

Of Mice and Men

John Steinbeck · Literary fiction

Of Mice and Men is a short novel — really a novella — published in 1937, two years before The Grapes of Wrath, and it covers much of the same Depression-era California ground in concentrated form.

Both dig into loneliness.

09

Station Eleven

Emily St. John Mandel · Literary fiction

Station Eleven begins with an actor dying of a heart attack onstage during a production of King Lear in Toronto.

Both dig into memory and loss.

10

The Cherry Orchard

Anton Chekhov · Literary fiction

The Cherry Orchard is Chekhov's final play, first performed in Moscow in 1904, months before his death.

Both dig into memory and loss.

11

The Gene: An Intimate History

Siddhartha Mukherjee · Science

The Gene is Siddhartha Mukherjee's account of the gene — what it is, how it was discovered, and what humanity has done and might yet do with that knowledge.

Both dig into medical ethics.

12

The Little Prince

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry · Philosophy

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry wrote The Little Prince in New York in 1942, in exile from a France under occupation, and the book was published in French and English simultaneously in 1943, the year before he disappeared on a reconnaissance flight.

Both dig into loneliness.