Brains Memoir

Jamila Rizvi and Rosie Waterland have each suffered significant, debilitating brain injury – one through rare disease and the medical interventions that followed, the other through deep childhood trauma.

Matilda Boseley's adult ADHD diagnosis was a massive, earth-shattering event. She was given a prescription but had no idea what ADHD meant for her identity, her relationships or her future. Twelve months of confusion later, journalist Matilda embarked on an epic voyage to figure out what's really happening in the stormy seas of the ADHD brain and write the guide she wished she'd had. The Year I Met My Brain is the ultimate travel companion for navigating and enjoying life as an ADHD adult

After completely and independently conquering a debilitating eating disorder, Kathryn Hansen wrote Brain over Binge to share her struggle with those still trapped in the compulsive binge-purge cycle. Since the book’s initial release in 2011, it has endured as an essential road map for using the power of the brain to erase harmful habits and create lasting change. The second edition is fully revised and updated with new information, compelling insights, and uplifting success stories that will inspire listeners to break free from their own self-defeating behaviors.

Hello there! Hayley Morris here. Or you might know me as the Brain Girl, and don't be fooled...it's not because I'm outrageously smart. Just an avid overthinker. I'm on a mission to prove once and for all that You. Are. Normal. Running through imaginary arguments whilst showering or not knowing how to be a normal human when you have the plumber over. I've spent the majority of my life saying and doing embarrassing things that wake me up in a cold sweat at three a.m. as my brain reminds me of every minor detail.

In September 1998, Michael J. Fox stunned the world by announcing he had been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease: a degenerative neurological condition. In fact, he had been secretly fighting it for seven years. The worldwide response was staggering. Fortunately, he had accepted the diagnosis and by the time the public started grieving for him, he had stopped grieving for himself.

Barbara Arrowsmith-Young was born with severe learning disabilities that caused teachers to label her slow, stubborn - or worse. As a child, she read and wrote everything backward, struggled to process concepts in language, continually got lost, and was physically uncoordinated. She could make no sense of an analogue clock. But by relying on her formidable memory and iron will, she made her way to graduate school, where she chanced upon research that inspired her to invent cognitive exercises to “fix” her own brain.

“Strokes are the third-leading cause of death in America, and for the ‘lucky’ stroke victims who don’t die, about half will spend the rest of their lives trying to recover.” Roughly 700,000 American suffer a stroke each year and around 140,000 of them are fatal. Different Strokes is an in-depth look at what surviving, or not surviving, a stroke can mean.

When Jenny Lexhed and her husband have their first child Lucas, they are living the dream. They're happily married, they've just bought a house, the company they built together from the ground up is starting to blossom. But with the arrival of their son, a feeling of anxiety slips into their life. What starts as a feeling becomes a conviction.

The story of one man’s journey to go beyond self awareness and the science of how to actually change your mind. In his groundbreaking, seminal book, visionary leader and transformational teacher David Bayer offers a revolutionary approach to personal growth and spiritual evolution, taking complex concepts from the fields of behavioral psychology, neurophysiology, quantum field theory, and spiritual tradition and distilling them into a powerful, practical, integrative framework for reclaiming personal and emotional sovereignty and having what Bayer calls “a powerful living experience.”

With poignant insight and humor, Frank Vertosick, Jr., MD, describes some of the greatest challenges of his career, including a six-week-old infant with a tumor in her brain, a young man struck down in his prime by paraplegia, and a minister with a .22-caliber bullet lodged in his skull. Told through intimate portraits of Vertosick's patients and unsparing-yet-fascinatingly detailed descriptions of surgical procedures, When the Air Hits Your Brain illuminates both the mysteries of the mind and the realities of the operating room.

When PhD candidate Sarah Vallance is thrown from a horse and suffers a jarring blow to the head, she believes she walks away unscathed. The next morning, things take a sharp turn as she’s quickly led from work to the emergency room. By the end of the week, a neurologist delivers a devastating prognosis: Sarah suffered a traumatic brain injury that has caused her IQ to plummet, with no hope of recovery. Her brain has irrevocably changed.

Unlocked begins with a vivid depiction of the author's life with her autistic son, Ben. Feelings of isolation, self-hate, and even moments of hatred toward her own child in response to his behaviors, as well as the impact on her marriage and younger daughter, impel her to seek solutions for his condition. Through years of trial and error, Susan eventually discovers methods that bring about radical improvement in Ben.

I'll Just Be Five More Minutes is a personal essay collection of laugh-out-loud-funny, tear-jerking, and at times cringey true stories of Emily's experiences as a neurodivergent woman. With the newfound knowledge of her ADHD, Emily candidly reexamines her complicated relationships (including one with a celebrity stalker), her money problems, the years she spent unknowingly self-medicating, and her hyperfixations (two words: decorative baskets). A memoir-in-essays both entertaining and enlightening, I'll Just Be Five More Minutes is for people with ADHD, as well as those who know and love them.

The international best seller and recommended by medics, patients and the NHS, this is a brain scientist's personal experience of a stroke. It tells of her journey and gives rare insight into human consciousness and its possibilities for all of us. On the morning of the 10th December 1996, Jill Bolte Taylor, a 37-year-old Harvard-trained brain scientist, experienced a massive stroke when a blood vessel exploded in the left side of her brain. A neuroanatomist by profession, she observed her own mind completely deteriorate.

Midnight Express tells the gut-wrenching true story of a young man's incarceration and escape from a Turkish prison. In 1970, Billy Hayes was an English major who left college in search of adventures to write about, like his hero Jack London. He had a rude awakening when he was arrested at the airport in Istanbul trying to board a plane while carrying four pounds of hashish, and given a life sentence.

On the morning of 10 December 2015, Owen Wright entered the water at Pipeline, Hawaii, determined to become a world champion. But after being pounded by a set of monstrous waves, he ended up fighting for life and facing extensive brain trauma. In this inspirational memoir, Wright chronicles the events leading up to that fateful day, as well as the months and years that followed as he battled to regain basic functioning, and eventually the capacity to compete again at the apex of surfing.

Christine Bryden was a top civil servant and single mother of three children when she was diagnosed with dementia at the age of 46. Since then she has gone on to challenge almost every stereotype of people with dementia. This is a vivid account of the author's experiences of living with dementia, exploring the effects of memory problems, loss of independence, difficulties in communication and the exhaustion of coping with simple tasks. She describes how, with the support of her husband, Paul, she continues to lead an active life and explains how professionals and carers can help.

This is the story of overcoming severe brain damage and paralysis to reach my dreams. After being diagnosed with a tumor on my brain stem, the doctors quickly moved me to surgery. The surgery to remove the malignant tumor from my brain stem left me in a coma for two weeks. When I started to wake up they discovered I had so much brain damaged that I was paralyzed and couldn’t even speak. This is the story of my journey. From the pitfalls and tribulations I endured to the great triumphs as I reached milestone after milestone. It’s about the lessons I took away from my unique experiences.

Henry Marsh has spent a lifetime operating on the surgical frontline. There have been exhilarating highs and devastating lows, but his love for the practice of neurosurgery has never wavered. Prompted by his retirement from his full-time job in the NHS, and through his continuing work in Nepal and Ukraine, Henry has been forced to reflect more deeply about what 40 years spent handling the human brain has taught him.

Pain is part of human existence, but we understand very little of the mechanics of it. We damage ourselves, we feel pain, we seek help from a professional or learn to not do that bad thing again. The story of what goes on in our body is not this simple. Even medical practitioners themselves often fail to grasp the complexities of our minds and bodies and how they interact when dealing with pain stimulus. Throughout history we've tried to prevent it and mediate its affects, resulting in the current situation we find ourselves; highly medicated with a booming opiates industry.