Here are 35 books that The Puzzle Solver fans have personally recommended if you like
The Puzzle Solver.
Book DNA is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.
I am myself an ME/CFS patient. While my background is not in science or medicine, I have turned my prior academic skills in philosophy to reading and studying the research into ME/CFS. I am now passionate about sharing my learnings with other patients, whether on my YouTube channel, in my book, or in talks to patient groups. In my advocacy work, I am also in regular contact and collaborate with Professor Klaus Wirth – one of the German researchers responsible for the recent breakthrough work into ME/CFS and whose work could ultimately lead to the first approved pill for ME/CFS and Long Covid.
I love being challenged in how I think about ME/CFS, and Dr Perrin, in coming at the illness from such an unusual angle, does just that.
For Perrin, spinal rigidity and obstructed lymphatic flow are key components of the illness. My first reaction to such claims: what can these things possibly have to do with an illness of exercise intolerance and post-exertional malaise?
Well, as I found from this lucid and engaging book, much more than you might think. The deal was sealed when an osteopath I visited confirmed that I also had all the problems Dr Perrin has noted in the spines of his ME/CFS patients.
Are you suffering from CFS/ME and/or fibromyalgia? Are you caring for someone with these conditions? Is someone close to you a sufferer? Almost certainly it will have taken your doctor some time to arrive at the diagnosis of CFS/ME and once there you may have been offered little more than 'graded exercise' and antidepressants to help with the condition. In the interim you may have tried many alternative approaches including changes in diet and lifestyle and a complex cocktail of dietary supplements. These may have helped but if the root cause is poor/blocked lymphatic drainage from the brain and this…
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…
I am myself an ME/CFS patient. While my background is not in science or medicine, I have turned my prior academic skills in philosophy to reading and studying the research into ME/CFS. I am now passionate about sharing my learnings with other patients, whether on my YouTube channel, in my book, or in talks to patient groups. In my advocacy work, I am also in regular contact and collaborate with Professor Klaus Wirth – one of the German researchers responsible for the recent breakthrough work into ME/CFS and whose work could ultimately lead to the first approved pill for ME/CFS and Long Covid.
Neuroplasticity (aka "brain retraining") is such a controversial topic in the ME/CFS and Long Covid world, and I am personally strongly against any suggestion that these illnesses are "only" the result of a hypersensitive nervous system.
However, I do also think that a maladaptive neuroplastic state is one part of these conditions and that neuroplasticity can help.
While I find Hopper’s book short on instructions, I regard it as highly valuable because of its multiple testimonials of recovery from using brain retraining. I think that these offer fascinating accounts of the potential utility of neuroplasticity for ME/CFS and related illnesses, and I would encourage anyone to read them with an open – though discerning – mind.
Annie Hopper had exhausted the medical system and was still suffering from disabling symptoms of multiple chemical sensitivities, fibromyalgia and electric hypersensitivity syndrome. Hopper deduced that a toxic trauma had over activated threat and protective mechanisms in her brain that were keeping her body stuck in a cycle of chronic illness and inflammation. In her search for healing, she masterfully created a system that would remap her brain, end her suffering and restore normal health. Wired for Healing sheds light on how trauma causes the brain to disorganize neural circuits and shares triumphant stories of recovery of people who have…
I am myself an ME/CFS patient. While my background is not in science or medicine, I have turned my prior academic skills in philosophy to reading and studying the research into ME/CFS. I am now passionate about sharing my learnings with other patients, whether on my YouTube channel, in my book, or in talks to patient groups. In my advocacy work, I am also in regular contact and collaborate with Professor Klaus Wirth – one of the German researchers responsible for the recent breakthrough work into ME/CFS and whose work could ultimately lead to the first approved pill for ME/CFS and Long Covid.
Although ME/CFS and Long Covid are essentially the same, I wanted to include here a book primarily focused on Long Covid, and this is arguably the most reputable such book.
I found this to be a highly trustworthy read, replete with a range of treatments known to help Long Covid patients. I also really appreciated its accessible style, given the cognitive issues that patients usually have.
Sometimes we just need clear overviews and a menu of treatment options to try in order to move forward, and this, the most practical book on my list, fits that bill very well.
Reports suggest that over 100m people around the world are living with Long Covid (more than 1.5m in the UK) yet reliable, clear information and guidance remains scarce. This book is the definitive guide to understanding, managing and treating the condition.
Written by the world's leading immunologist Professor Danny Altmann and expert patient Gez Medinger, The Long Covid Handbook translates cutting-edge science, patient-led research and practical guidance with clarity. This book will equip you with expert information and advice on:
- Long Covid's 200 symptoms, which include fatigue, brain fog, breathlessness and more -…
The Year Mrs. Cooper Got Out More
by
Meredith Marple,
The coastal tourist town of Great Wharf, Maine, boasts a crime rate so low you might suspect someone’s lying.
Nevertheless, jobless empty nester Mallory Cooper has become increasingly reclusive and fearful. Careful to keep the red wine handy and loath to leave the house, Mallory misses her happier self—and so…
I am myself an ME/CFS patient. While my background is not in science or medicine, I have turned my prior academic skills in philosophy to reading and studying the research into ME/CFS. I am now passionate about sharing my learnings with other patients, whether on my YouTube channel, in my book, or in talks to patient groups. In my advocacy work, I am also in regular contact and collaborate with Professor Klaus Wirth – one of the German researchers responsible for the recent breakthrough work into ME/CFS and whose work could ultimately lead to the first approved pill for ME/CFS and Long Covid.
Finally, I wanted to throw in a bit of a wildcard in the form of a book which details an as yet underused treatment, but one which could become an established option for patients with these illnesses.
In reading this, I was intrigued by Dr Propokov’s account of "intermittent hypoxic hyperoxic therapy" (IHHT), a treatment which – get this! – tricks the body into thinking it is at high altitude, along with all the benefits that entails (increased red blood cells, etc).
Given that ME/CFS is characterised by poor systemic oxygen extraction, I was really interested to learn of a therapy that can improve bodily oxygenation capacity at baseline, all the more so when paired with Dr Propokov’s accounts of healing among his chronic Lyme patients, an illness with myriad similarities to ME/CFS.
Could this become a widespread treatment for ME/CFS in the future? Having read this book, I wouldn’t…
Why on earth a biogerontologist, mitochondrial researcher and diving physician writes a book on Lyme-borreliosis? He hopes to educate and motivate readers for a proactive position regarding their health. The author uses described method for prevention, treatment and recovery of many health problems - for himself, his family and for his patients and clients with remarkable results for more than 30 years. The underlying scientific explanations elucidate in a simple, but detailed form, why his method works against Lyme disease and co-infections. This book doesn't force one to blind obedience to its recommendations; it encourages readers to build up their…
Growing up, I experienced “otherness.” My family was hard up amidst affluence. Typecast as Jewish, where that was a rarity, we were met with suspicion and unease. Being a woman held my mother back from her preferred profession. Racism was rampant; my growing appreciation of it and efforts to intervene added to “otherness.” My childhood was shadowed by illness, including my mother’s cancer. These influences drew me to medicine and science. Both are a way to overcome “otherness” and to protect one’s family, even as my sense of family expanded. Medicine forges extraordinary bonds between doctor and patient. Science brings people together from diverse backgrounds to share goals. These connections make meaningful stories.
What is it like to be a doctor failing to save your patients, then turning to the lab to understand why, then bringing that learning back to improve outcomes, not just for your patients but for patients you will never see who have diseases you will never treat?
Kevin Tracey is a brilliant neurosurgeon and innovative scientist who not only did all that but also went one step further—he wrote a book that answers those questions and reads like a thriller. He takes the concept of “lab bench to bedside” from platitude to paradigm.
Severe sepsis, a critical illness that most often afflicts victims of initially non-fatal illnesses or injuries, is the third-most common killer in the United States. In "Fatal Sequence", neurosurgeon, immunologist, and clinical investigator, Kevin J. Tracey offers a chronicle, both scientific and human, using cases he personally experienced to illustrate the clinical nightmare of organ failure that typifies the disease. In clear, accessible language, Tracey explains how the brain, which normally restrains the immune system and protects the patient, can fail during severe sepsis - allowing the immune system to indiscriminately kill normal cells along with foreign microbes. "Fatal Sequence"…
I am an autistic female myself and have worked in the field of autism for 20 years. I’ve written several books on the subject of autism, have an MA in Autism and delivered many hundreds of conference presentations (several of which can be found on Youtube). Frankly, I know my stuff as I live and breathe the world of autistic women. I have an autistic daughter, all of my female friends are autistic and I have diagnosed hundreds of females as autistic.
An extraordinary book written by an extraordinary woman.
Donna’s autobiography shares her often difficult childhood story and her ‘discovery’ that she was autistic at a time when diagnosis for women was uncommon. Her tale is harrowing at times, yet inspiring and so fascinating to learn of her life. A real classic of a book written by an autistic woman.
Donna Williams was a child with more labels than a jam-jar: deaf, wild disturbed, stupid insane... She lived within herself, her own world her foreground, ours a background she only visited. Isolated from her self and from the outside world, Donna was, in her words, a Nobody Nowhere. She swung violently between these two worlds, battling to join our world and, simultaneously, to keep it out. Abandoned from all connection to the self within her, she lived as a ghost with a body, a patchwork of the images which bombarded her. Intact but detached from the seemingly incomprehensible world around…
Don’t mess with the hothead—or he might just mess with you. Slater Ibáñez is only interested in two kinds of guys: the ones he wants to punch, and the ones he sleeps with. Things get interesting when they start to overlap. A freelance investigator, Slater trolls the dark side of…
For me, writing fiction is a way of tackling issues of fate and identity through storytelling. I believe we’re each the result of an intersection between personality and history and I’m interested in the way our time and place impacts us and creates a backdrop for our lives. My first novel, The Wayward Moon, is historical fiction set in the 9th-century Middle East. My second novel follows a Jewish family back six generations to Belarus. But no matter what period I’m writing about, the most important thing is always to tell a good story.
Franzen is at his best when depicting character, and The Corrections goes deep, creating a family drama that is rooted in detailed psychological portraits of his subjects.
In doing so, he meticulously builds their worlds, motivations, and fears, creating nuanced portrayals that not only reveal individual personality, but also the texture and color of life in America in the late 20th century.
Yet the true theme of the book is family dynamics: what does it mean when your mother insists that you come home for Christmas, and what does it mean when you don’t really want to go?
#1 NEW YORK TIMES Bestseller NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER
“A spellbinding novel” (People) from the New York Times bestselling author Jonathan Franzen, the author of Crossroads, The Corrections is a comic, tragic epic of worlds colliding: an old-fashioned world of civic virtue and sexual inhibitions, a new world of home surveillance, hands-off parenting, do-it-yourself mental health care, and globalized greed.
After almost fifty years as a wife and mother, Enid Lambert is ready to have some fun. Unfortunately, her husband, Alfred, is losing his sanity to Parkinson’s disease, and their children have long since flown the family nest to the…
I am a retired Army officer who served for 43 years. I was also in the Pentagon on 9/11 and knew that life as we knew it would change dramatically. The book I wrote, called The Impossible Mission, is about the drawdown of U.S. forces from Iraq and the birth of a small contingent called OSC-I, which I had the privilege to command, with the mission to build the Iraqi security systems. This command allowed me to bring closure to the many years I had to deal with “the war on terrorism” both from a policy perspective and by leading America’s soldiers who were at the front lines fighting the war.
This is an emotional and moving story of a young officer who was badly injured in Iraq and lost all his eyesight from that injury.
But that did not stop him. He stayed on active duty, went to Duke and got his master's degree, returned to his alma mater, West Point, to command the headquarters company, and then taught the next generation of America’s Army leaders while at West Point.
If I want to see what is right with America, I need to go no further than to read this book about Captain Scotty Smiley. His story made me proud. It made me hurt for him. But it made me admire and respect him so much.
This is a story that will enlighten all of America, as it has enlightened me.
The inspiring, unflinching true story of "blind" faith, as Major Scotty Smiley awakes in a hospital bed and realizes his world is permanently dark he must stretch his faith like never before. Courageous, heartfelt, and honest, Hope Unseen challenges readers to question their doubts, not their beliefs, and depend upon God no matter what.
A nervous glance from a man in a parked car. Muted instincts from a soldier on patrol. Violent destruction followed by total darkness. Two weeks later, Scotty Smiley woke up in Walter Reed Army Medical Center, helpless . . . and blind.
I’ve been fascinated by the way people respond to physical beauty since childhood—my teachers heaped praise on the pretty kids, reserving hard words for the less genetically blessed. This experience drove me to explore the pervasive ways in which unconscious beauty bias perpetuates injustice, and how it intersects with racism and privilege. Prison plastic surgery might sound like a punchline but for many, it was a lifeline. UK-born, I now live in San Francisco and have a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University, New York. My work has been published by The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Wired, and Fast Company, among others.
This first-person account of what it’s like to grow up visibly different is beautifully written, and manages to be both heartrending and uplifting at the same time. Henley does a stellar job of keeping the reader invested in her struggles, and her musings on how pervasive the idea of arbitrary physical traits and one’s value as an individual is, makes for an uncomfortable but necessary read. A must-read for anyone who’s ever felt like they don’t fit in.
"Raw and unflinching . . . A must-read!" --Marieke Nijkamp, #1 New York Times-bestselling author of This Is Where It Ends
"[It] cuts to the heart of our bogus ideas of beauty." -Scott Westerfeld, #1 New York Times-bestselling author of Uglies
I am ugly. There's a mathematical equation to prove it.
At only eight months old, identical twin sisters Ariel and Zan were diagnosed with Crouzon syndrome -- a rare condition where the bones in the head fuse prematurely. They were the first twins known to survive it.
Growing up, Ariel and her sister endured numerous appearance-altering procedures. Surgeons would…
I'm an award-winning and bestselling author who teaches creative writing to veterans as part of a collaboration between the Department of Defense and the National Endowment for the Arts. I’m also an Air Force brat who grew up around military folk. After traumatic events gave me personal experience with post-traumatic stress disorder, I better understood why veterans don’t talk about their time in war. The books on this list are some of my favorites for capturing the terror of battle and the difficulty of reintegrating into a society that gives little thought to the human cost of war.
For Morris, war was a siren call, “exalting” work that allowed him to “challenge death.” But once redeployed to the safety of America, he realized that months and years of waiting for the next bomb to explode had taught his body to react to potential threats in the environment that his mind rightfully ignored. A sack of trash at the side of the road. A car backfiring. A restless crowd. For the combat veteran, these everyday triggers can generate a crippling flashback or a spiraling panic, the body shooting up flares of alarm before the mind has time to recognize that in America, a bag of trash is just trash.The Evil Hoursis a brilliant, evocative, and often poetic portrayal of one man’s quest to leave the war behind.
“An essential book” on PTSD, an all-too-common condition in both military veterans and civilians (The New York Times Book Review).
Post-traumatic stress disorder afflicts as many as 30 percent of those who have experienced twenty-first-century combat—but it is not confined to soldiers. Countless ordinary Americans also suffer from PTSD, following incidences of abuse, crime, natural disasters, accidents, or other trauma—yet in many cases their symptoms are still shrouded in mystery, secrecy, and shame.
This “compulsively readable” study takes an in-depth look at the subject (Los Angeles Times). Written by a war correspondent and former Marine with firsthand experience of this…
