100 Books Like The Woman Who Fooled The World

I like fiction which makes a character confront what the poet Thom Gunn called ‘the blackmail of his circumstances’: where you are born, the expectations of you. I like to think I am very much a self-created individual, but I can never escape what I was born into; the self is a prison that the will is trying to break out of. I like literature which reflects that challenge.

While I love many novels about individuals, there’s something about weird groups of people—for example, cults—that I’ve always been drawn to. The Book of Fred plays with this dynamic by showing the intersection between a doomsday cult, the Fredians, and the quirky liberal community that foster child Mary Fred Anderson finds herself in. What I find fascinating about cults is how appealing they are, how being part of a group has a seductive quality that can so easily go horribly wrong. I love novels and memoirs that show that seductive side while zeroing in on the complications groups pose to individual identity. 

I am always enthralled by stories about people who are faking it. I want to read any story where someone either inflates their importance to get their foot in the door, scrambles to keep their secrets from being revealed, or flat-out lies and scams people out of millions. Lying is incredibly human, and witnessing how long one will keep a lie going is fascinating to me because it’s always a house of cards that will eventually tumble. Most crime stories and mysteries revolve around someone desperately trying to keep something in their life secret, and often that comes from a space of gaining access to affluence or making sure you keep your affluence.

I am always enthralled by stories about people who are faking it. I want to read any story where someone either inflates their importance to get their foot in the door, scrambles to keep their secrets from being revealed, or flat-out lies and scams people out of millions. Lying is incredibly human, and witnessing how long one will keep a lie going is fascinating to me because it’s always a house of cards that will eventually tumble. Most crime stories and mysteries revolve around someone desperately trying to keep something in their life secret, and often that comes from a space of gaining access to affluence or making sure you keep your affluence.

I was 32 when diagnosed with stage 4 non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. As a clinician, and now cancer survivor, I’ve become increasingly focused on empowering cancer patients through and beyond remission. Nearly two decades of clinical practice have taught me that an informed and committed patient makes better decisions about their care, harmoniously interfaces with their healthcare team, and stays focused on living a healthy lifestyle. I’ve read countless books about cancer, but this list outlines the essentials that I recommend to patients beginning their healing journey.

Unleash Your God-Given Healing is the book I never wanted to write. As an educator and trained researcher, I uncovered some of the reasons I got a cancer I had no risk factors or genetics for. I also discovered what I could do to help my doctors to beat my cancer and prevent a recurrence. After surgeries and then chemo and immunotherapy for a year, my cancer was gone. My doctors called me their “Rock Star” cancer patient and attributed my lifestyle changes as to why I fared well and returned quickly to vibrant health. I realized that what I learned could help many people. The treasures I learned are in this book. 

In middle school, I wrote my first novel called Children of the House. It pulled inspiration from the likes of Shirley Jackson, Stephen King, William Shakespeare, and Leo Tolstoy. I was attempting to explore family dynamics while also describing bloody stains on the hallway carpet that would never quite go away. When I read, I would travel from literary fiction to horror with ease until I began to realize the distinction was unimportant. Horror reflects the struggles of the every day in a heightened fashion. Books of this genre often have more freedom to explore the deepest issues that plague us and to do so in a way that will reach a wider audience.

I earned a Ph.D. in Modern Thought from Stanford and have been an award-winning professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies for over three decades. I've also lived with Crohn’s Disease for more than 50 years. At the intersection of these two experiences, I developed a therapeutic practice oriented towards those with chronic and life-threatening illnesses called Healing Counsel. As both a teacher and a counsellor, I ask people to reconsider the ways they make sense of their experiences. I try to assist people to open up new possibilities for healing, not only as individuals, but also as societies, maybe even as a species, or perhaps even as planetary beings.

I am an expert on being a cancer patient because I was diagnosed with breast cancer in the fall of 2017. I am also a former oncology and hospice nurse. A cancer diagnosis always feels like a calamity and my work with very sick cancer patients showed me how serious the disease can be. I also thought that our health care system would react to cancer with compassion, but I was wrong. I felt on my own as a patient, and that experience led me to reflect on my nursing work. Healing alternates between me being a nurse and a patient. The alteration shows the failings of our health care system, and how to make it more caring.

I’m an Australian writer and journalist. I’ve written several humour books, as well as a history of Australia in the 1960 and 1970s called The Land Before Avocado. I also write for the Sydney Morning Herald and The Washington Post and present a radio show on ABC Radio Sydney. Of the books I’ve written, the one that’s closest to my heart is my memoir Flesh Wounds.