In my search to try and understand uncertainty, I read novels, memoirs, plays, scholarly articles, medical studies, and so much more. This list is inclusive of what I read, though it is not comprehensive of every word. Many of these texts have inspired the book in part, while others served as intellectual foundations. I hope this list of reading materials will be of help to others going through similar experiences.
MEMOIR
Bialosky, Jill. History of a Suicide. New York: Atria, 2011.
Biss, Eula. On Immunity. Minneapolis: Graywolf Press, 2014.
Cahalan, Susannah. Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness. New York: Free Press, 2012.
Deraniyagala, Sonali. Wave. New York: Knopf, 2013.
Didion, Joan. The Year of Magical Thinking. New York: Knopf, 2005.
———. Blue Nights. New York: Knopf, 2011.
Grealy, Lucy. Autobiography of a Face. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1994.
Karr, Mary. The Art of Memoir. New York: Harper, 2015.
MacDonald, Helen. H Is for Hawk. New York: Grove Atlantic, 2015.
Manguso, Sarah. The Two Kinds of Decay. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008.
———. Ongoingness. Minneapolis: Graywolf Press, 2015.
Marsh, Henry. Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death, and Brain Surgery. New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2015.
McCracken, Elizabeth. An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination. New York: Little Brown and Company, 2008.
Nelson, Maggie. The Argonauts. Minneapolis: Graywolf Press, 2016.
O’Rourke, Meghan. The Long Goodbye. New York: Riverhead, 2011.
Patchett, Anne. Truth & Beauty. New York: Harper, 2004.
Rapp, Emily. The Still Point of the Turning World. New York: Penguin Press, 2013.
Roth, Philip. The Facts: A Novelist’s Autobiography. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1988.
Shapiro, Dani. Devotion. New York: Harper, 2010.
Skloot, Rebecca. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. New York: Crown, 2010.
Smith, Claire Bidwell. The Rules of Inheritance. New York: Plume, 2012.
Solnit, Rebecca. A Field Guide to Getting Lost. New York: Viking, 2005.
———. The Faraway Nearby. New York: Viking, 2013.
Strauss, Darin. Half a Life. New York: Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2011.
Verghese, Abraham. My Own Country. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1994.
Woodward, Theodore E. Make Room for Sentiment: A Physician’s Story. Baltimore: University of Maryland Alumni, 1988.
GENERAL NONFICTION AND CRITICISM
Albert, David Z. Quantum Mechanics and Experience. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993.
Doidge, Norman. The Brain’s Way of Healing: Remarkable Discoveries and Recoveries from the Frontiers of Neuroplasticity. New York: Viking, 2015.
Fadiman, Anne. The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1997.
Fahey, Caitlin Jeanne. “Altogether Governed by Humours: The Four Ancient Temperaments in Shakespeare.” Graduate theses and dissertations. http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd/230. 2008.
Gawande, Atul. Complications. New York: Metropolitan Books, 2002.
———. Being Mortal. New York: Metropolitan Books, 2014.
Gordon, Lois. Reading Godot. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2002.
Kahneman, Daniel. Thinking Fast and Slow. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011.
Kluger, Matthew J. Fever: Its Biology, Evolution, and Function. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979.
Lane, Harlan. Wild Boy of Aveyron. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1979.
Lindley, David. Uncertainty: Einstein, Heisenberg, Bohr, and the Struggle for the Soul of Science. New York: Anchor Books, 2007.
Mukherjee, Siddhartha. The Emperor of All Maladies. New York: Scribner, 2010.
Sacks, Oliver. The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. New York: Touchstone, 1998.
———. Hallucinations. New York: Knopf, 2012.
Serpeli, Namwali C. Seven Modes of Uncertainty. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2014.
Shonkoff, Jack P., and Samuel J. Meisels. Handbook of Early Intervention, Second Edition. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
Smyth, M. D., J. Charley, et al. History of Rheumatology in the United States. Atlanta: Arthritis Foundation, 1985.
Sontag, Susan. Illness as Metaphor and AIDS and Its Metaphors. New York: Picador, 2001.
FICTION, POETRY, AND DRAMA
Alexie, Sherman. “Learning to Drown.” Beloit Poetry Journal 41, no. 1 (1990).
Beckett, Samuel. Waiting for Godot. New York: Grove Press, 2011.
Cervantes, Miguel de. Don Quixote.
Dawson, Jill. Wild Boy. London: Sceptre, 2003.
Dostoevsky, Fyodor. Crime and Punishment.
Poe, Edgar Allen. “The Tell-Tale Heart.” The Tell-Tale Heart and Other Writings. New York: Bantam Classics, 1983.
Shaffer, Peter. Amadeus. New York: Harper & Row, 1981.
Shakespeare, William. Hamlet.
———. Macbeth.
Stoppard, Tom. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. New York: Grove Press, 1971.
HISTORICAL TEXTS
Bartlett, Elisha, MD. Diagnosis and Treatment of the Fevers of the United States. 4th edition. Philadelphia: Blanchard & Lea, 1856.
Bucknill, John Charles. The Medical Knowledge of Shakespeare. London: Longman & Co., Paternoster Row, 1860.
Hippocrates of Kos and Professor Sir Geoffrey Ernest Richard Lloyd. Translated by J. Chadwick, W. N. Mann, I. M. Lonie, et al. Hippocratic Writings. New York: Penguin Classics, 1983.
Maimonides, Moses. Translated by M. Fiedlaender; edited and compiled by Paul A. Boer Sr. A Guide for the Perplexed. Veritas Splendor Publications, 2013.
Münsterberg, Hugo. On the Witness Stand: Essays on Psychology and Crime. Ithaca: Cornell University Library, 2009; originally published in 1908.
Osler, William, MD. Aequanimitas. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1905.
ARTICLES, ESSAYS, AND STUDIES
Atkins, E. “Fever: Historical Perspectives and Evolution of Modern Views.” British Journal of Rheumatology (1985).
Clarke, Sir Cyril. “The Uncertainty Principle as Applied to Medicine.” Journal of Biological Education 16, no. 2 (1982): 93–96.
“Dr. Anthony Atala, MD: New Body Parts—the Shape of Things to Come?” World Intellectual Property Organization. WIPO Magazine (June 2013).
Engelhardt, Laura. “The Problem with Eyewitness Testimony: Commentary on a Talk by George Fisher and Barbara Tversky.” Stanford Journal of Legal Studies 1, no. 1.
Fox, Craig R., and Russell A. Poldrack. “Prospect Theory and the Brain.” Neuroeconomics: Decision Making and the Brain. Elsevier (2009).
Hamilton, Jon. “A Man’s Incomplete Brain Reveals Cerebellum’s Role in Thought and Emotion.” NPR.org. March 16, 2015.
Harris, Elizabeth A. “Sharp Rise in Occupational Therapy Cases at New York’s Schools.” New York Times. February 17, 2015.
Johnston, Carol S., and Lori L. Thompson. “Vitamin C Status of an Outpatient Population.” Journal of the American College of Nutrition 17, no. 4 (1998).
Kaplan, E. L., and P. Meier. “Nonparametric Estimation from Incomplete Observations.” Journal of the American Statistical Association 53 (1958): 457–81.
Kennerley, Steven W., and Mark E. Walton, et al. “Optimal Decision Making and the Anterior Cingulate Cortex.” Nature Neuroscience 9, no. 7 (July 2006).
Kottek, Samuel S., MD. “Toward Becoming an Accomplished Physician: Maimonides Versus Galen.” Rambam Maimonides Medical Journal 2, no. 4 (October 2011).
Mundkur, Nandini. “Neuroplasticity in Children.” Indian Journal of Pediatrics 72 (October 2005).
Naidoo, T. “Health and Health Care—a Hindu Perspective.” Medicine and Law 7, no. 6 (1989): 643–47.
Rich, Jason T., and Neely J. Gail, et al. “A Practical Guide to Understanding Kaplan-Meier Curves.” Otolaryngology Head Neck Surgery 143, no. 3 (September 2010): 331–36.
Sonnenberg, Amnon, MD. “A Medical Uncertainty Principle.” Elsevier Science Inc. M.Sc. American Journal of Gastroenterology 96, no. 12 (2001).
Wellbery, Caroline. “The Art of Medicine. The Value of Medical Uncertainty.” The Lancet 375 (May 2010).
Whitman, Sarah M., M.D. “Pain and Suffering as Viewed by the Hindu Religion.” Journal of Pain 8, no. 8 (August 2007): 607–13.
VIDEOS, LECTURES, AND INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPTS
Aamodt, Sandra. Interview by Tony Cox. “Brain Maturity Extends Well Beyond Teen Years.” National Public Radio: Brain Candy. October 10, 2011.
Atala, Anthony. “Printing a Human Kidney.” TED2011. Filmed March 2011.
BBC Radio 4. Case Study: The Wild Boy of Aveyron. May 2008. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00b7lrb.
Gottlieb, Michael A., and Rudolf Pfeiffer. “The Relation of Wave and Particle Viewpoints.” The Feynman Lectures on Physics. California Institute of Technology. http://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/III_02.html.
Kahneman, Daniel. “The Riddle of Experience vs. Memory.” TED2010. Filmed February 2010.
PAMPHLETS
“Funding the Work of California’s Regional Centers.” Prepared by the Association of Regional Center Agencies. September 2013. http://www.chhs.ca.gov/DSTaskForce/7%20Funding-the-Work-of-CA-RCs-Report.pdf.
“Economic Acting Lessons: Using Insights into Human Behavior, UCLA Anderson Special Research Group Is Helping to Transform Economics.” UCLA Anderson School of Business. Assets; Fall 2009. http://www.anderson.ucla.edu/assets-archive/fall-2009-x32918#economic.
REFERENCE BOOKS
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th edition. Edited by the American Psychiatric Association. Arlington, VA: American Psychiatric Association Publishing, 2013.
Stedman’s Medical Dictionary, 26th edition. Baltimore: Williams & Wilkins, 2005.