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Riverhead Books

Invisible Kingdom: Reimagining Chronic Illness

Regular price $18.00 USD
Regular price Sale price $18.00 USD
Title: Invisible Kingdom: Reimagining Chronic Illness
Author: Meghan O'Rourke
ISBN: 9780399573309
Publisher: Riverhead Books
Published: 2023
Binding: Paperback
Language: English
Condition: New
New from the publisher

Memoir 1513185

Publisher Description:
A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

FINALIST FOR THE 2022 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR NONFICTION

Named one of the BEST BOOKS OF 2022 by NPR, The New Yorker, Time, and Vogue

"
Remarkable." -Andrew Solomon, The New York Times Book Review

"At once a rigorous work of scholarship and a radical act of empathy."--Esquire

"A ray of light into those isolated cocoons of darkness that, at one time or another, may afflict us all." --The Wall Street Journal

"Essential."--The Boston Globe

A landmark exploration of one of the most consequential and mysterious issues of our time: the rise of chronic illness and autoimmune diseases

A silent epidemic of chronic illnesses afflicts tens of millions of Americans: these are diseases that are poorly understood, frequently marginalized, and can go undiagnosed and unrecognized altogether. Renowned writer Meghan O'Rourke delivers a revelatory investigation into this elusive category of "invisible" illness that encompasses autoimmune diseases, post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome, and now long COVID, synthesizing the personal and the universal to help all of us through this new frontier.

Drawing on her own medical experiences as well as a decade of interviews with doctors, patients, researchers, and public health experts, O'Rourke traces the history of Western definitions of illness, and reveals how inherited ideas of cause, diagnosis, and treatment have led us to ignore a host of hard-to-understand medical conditions, ones that resist easy description or simple cures. And as America faces this health crisis of extraordinary proportions, the populations most likely to be neglected by our institutions include women, the working class, and people of color.

Blending lyricism and erudition, candor and empathy, O'Rourke brings together her deep and disparate talents and roles as critic, journalist, poe