The DO Book Club, July 2026: Summer beach reads with a medical twist

Summer is well under way, and many of us have plans to kick back and relax at the beach or on vacation this season. For those who are always looking to pack along a good book (or two!), The DO staff and Book Club writers have pulled together our top suggestions for summer beach reads—ranging from non-fiction to memoir to science fiction, there is something for everyone, and each selection has a medical component.

Below are The DO’s recommendations for summer 2026—let us know in the comments below what your own favorite beach read is!

‘Everything is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection,’ by John Green
Recommended by: Joan Naidorf, DO

John Green, one of the leading authors of young adult fiction (including The Fault in Our Stars and Looking for Alaska), treats readers to this gem of nonfiction published in 2025. Although it sounds improbable, the author’s explanation of how the stubborn mycobacterium remains a deadly threat despite the existence of a cure is a short, touching and enjoyable read.

If you think this tale sounds dry, it most certainly is not. Readers meet Henry, a charismatic young man in Sierra Leone, who the author met during his own visit to the country in 2019. Henry showed Green around an under-funded medical facility and spoke to him about his own experiences as a child with first treatable, and then multi-drug-resistant, TB. Green’s friendship with Henry would spark a tremendous urge to tell his story, discover the roots of the local problem and expose the confounding lack of commitment that the Western world has made to eradicate the disease.

Green learned that TB was not an ancient problem, but an ongoing global issue despite the availability of effective medications. The author spent several years researching the illness and discussing the problem with experts. He advocated at the UN and to pharmaceutical companies to ease access to rapid testing and the expensive medications needed to treat drug-resistant strains. His efforts were successful.

A funny thing happened when I started reading the lessons of history and how much of it has been shaped by the downward drag of TB. I was reminded of my own father’s incidental diagnosis of a pulmonary mass in the days before CT scans. After surgical removal, he was diagnosed with a pulmonary tubercle (an encapsulated TB infection). My family was dragged into years of testing. Green’s opening chapters relate the enormous historical significance of this one wasting and (formerly) incurable infection also known as consumption, scrofula, phthisis and Potts disease. This diagnosis lurked in the background of many of the major historical and cultural events of the last millennium.

Green advocates strongly for the haves to make a stronger commitment to the have-nots.

“We cannot address TB only with vaccines and medications … we must also address the root cause of tuberculosis, which is injustice,” he implores. “In a world where everyone can eat, and access healthcare, and be treated humanely, tuberculosis has no chance. Ultimately, we are the cause. We must also be the cure.” (p. 184)

Physician readers will be reminded of some of their basic motivations for beginning the study and practice of medicine. This story brings together the microbial science, history of the disease and very touching personal experiences of one special young man. You will find yourself rooting for Henry’s fight against a dogged illness and against the insidious endurance of tuberculosis infections in our world. “Everything is Tuberculosis” is absolutely a worthy addition to your summer beach bag or carry-on.

‘Never Let Me Go,’ by Kazuo Ishiguro
Recommended by: Tim Barreiro, DO

Kazuo Ishiguro’s “Never Let Me Go,” published in 2005, is a master class in moral reasoning and bioethical inquiry. The novel presents a quiet dystopia where systemic oppression operates not through overt violence, but through the polite, institutionalized normalization of atrocity. In a utilitarian society, marginalized clones are reduced to mere biological resources, while the medical establishment uses chilling euphemisms like donations and completion to obscure the reality of forced organ harvesting.

By cloaking systemic organ donation in the language of medical benevolence and placing the setting in the bucolic English countryside, the narrative forces readers to confront how easily societies can maintain a humanitarian façade while perpetrating profound ethical injustices.

At its core, the novel poses severe moral questions about complicity, deliberate blindness and Fyodor Dostoevsky’s concept that we all share a moral responsibility. It challenges the idea that a wrong can become right simply because it is scientifically useful, showing how unchecked wrongs harden into accepted customs.

Physicians will be challenged with the question, “because we can, should we?” Readers will also be challenged, asking “if physicians and patients know time is limited, how should life be structured?” Devastatingly, Ishiguro critiques a society that requires the marginalized to scientifically or artistically prove their humanity to avoid bodily exploitation, warning against scientific progress detached from moral accountability.

Despite this grim backdrop, the novel is deeply touching due to the relentless humanity of its protagonists. Kathy’s retrospective memoir operates as a dissension of Bildungsroman or a coming-of-age story, acting as a desperate human rights narrative. This emotional core is encapsulated in the title of the novel, inspired by the 1956 Judy Bridgewater song of the same name—which operates on two emotional levels.

For 11-year-old Kathy, swaying to that song while cradling a pillow, it represents a maternal fantasy and an unconscious yearning for connection. Clones are sterile. However, when Madame, the person in charge of running the institution, secretly watches her, she weeps at a heartbreaking metaphor for the collision between humanity and biotechnology, perceiving Kathy as clinging to an old idealistic world rapidly being erased by a cruel scientific era.

“I saw a new world coming rapidly. More scientific, efficient, yes. More cures for the old sicknesses. Very good. But a harsh, cruel world. And I saw a little girl, her eyes tightly closed, holding to her breast the old kind world, one that she knew in her heart could not remain, and she was holding it and pleading, never to let her go.” (p. 241)

This passage is a devastating metaphor for the collision between human compassion and utilitarian biotechnology. It captures Madame’s tragic realization that the clones’ existence is the cost of a ruthless medical system, with Kathy’s dance symbolizing a desperate plea to hold onto an “old kind world” that is being erased by scientific progress.

Storytelling and literature serve as vital coping mechanisms against the hidden ideas in this novel. Kathy’s narrative parallels Marcel Proust’s literary theory of involuntary memories, where profound recollections are unexpectedly triggered by sensory experiences. Kathy relies on events like her cassette tape and Judy Bridgewater’s song to unlock vivid emotional recollections as she works to preserve her past and help her understand her own life.

Additionally, Kathy uses stories like “One Thousand and One Nights” and “The Odyssey” as therapeutic anchors. Just as Scheherazade uses storytelling as a desperate survival tactic in “One Thousand and One Nights,” Kathy uses autobiographical storytelling to process trauma and preserve human dignity. Furthermore, The Odyssey’s themes of perilous descents mirror Tommy and Kathy’s tragic navigation of a medicalized system, driven by a profound nostalgia for their shared past.

Ultimately, engaging in these stories and memories grants the protagonist Kathy a fleeting but peaceful escape from her grim reality. As a meditation on what it means to be human, the novel offers a breathtaking testament to the resilience of memory, love and affection against human exploitation.

‘I Want to Be Where the Normal People Are,’* by Rachel Bloom
Recommended by: Alexa Wilkerson, AOA editorial specialist

*Content warning for profanity and sexual situations

If you’ve ever struggled with your mental health, you’ll relate strongly to the themes and feelings expressed throughout the stories in this book. Published in 2020 by actress and author Rachel Bloom, her collection of essays and poems is a compilation of stories on childhood bullies, a late discovery of childhood anxiety and OCD and the ups and downs of a life and career in theater and comedy.

If you’re a fan of The CW’s “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” or have caught Bloom’s Netflix comedy special “Death, Let Me Do My Special,” then you’re likely familiar with Bloom’s eclectic and musically inclined sense of humor. Her unique artistic voice comes through on every page, making it easy for readers to fully understand and embrace each expression.

As the title suggests, the book delves into what “normal” really looks like, and why it’s not actually real. Throughout the 277 pages, Bloom is transparent and open about her mental health struggles and the impact they have had on her life. She shares excerpts of her personal journal entries and poems she wrote in childhood, using these and fictional play “scripts” to showcase the lessons she’s learned and her growth. This format makes the book easy to breeze through, despite the mention of some heavier topics—the journal entries and poems help the reader digest her messages.

When a teacher first voiced Bloom’s inner fears and anxieties, saying “normal kids don’t dress the way you do,” Bloom spun out and had an emotional moment alone in the school bathroom.

“My teacher had voiced everything I feared about myself. I wasn’t normal. Something was deeply wrong with me. And an adult had said it, which made it true.” (p. 57)

This was monumental to read, really proving that what we say to people, especially kids, truly matters—you never know what will ingrain itself in someone else’s brain to reinforce their insecurities.

Finally piecing together explanations of her actions and thoughts in childhood as an adult led Bloom to grow and evolve, encouraging her to face her struggles head-on as she runs into bullies and similar problems once again in adulthood.

“I want to thank Rejection. I know a lot of people say that they’re grateful for Rejection but it’s really just them reverse-engineering their failures to fit some sort of “meant-to-be” narrative. Honestly, though: Rejection really helped me.” (p.169)

As a long-time fan of Rachel Bloom and anything with a musical foundation, I highly recommend picking this one up for your summer vacation this year—especially if you’re in a similar spot. While this can’t serve as your only mental health help, it can benefit us all to better understand the complexities of what really goes on behind the scenes.

‘Witchcraft for Wayward Girls,’ by Grady Hendrix
Recommended by: Katie Arvia, AOA digital content specialist

If you’ve read our previous book recommendation articles, you might already know that I’m a huge fan of horror novels—so much so that I actually wrote a graduate thesis on the genre. One of my favorite authors is Grady Hendrix, and his 2025 novel “Witchcraft for Wayward Girls” is the latest installment of killer summer reads.

What keeps me coming back to Hendrix’s stories is how exceptionally well he writes from the female perspective. Horror frequently relies on victimizing women for shock value, but Hendrix successfully flips that narrative on its head by bringing diverse characters to life and creating empowering storylines.

“Witchcraft for Wayward Girls” is set in the 1970s in a maternity home for unwed pregnant girls in St. Augustine, Florida. The story follows 15-year-old Fern and the other girls at the home. After discovering a book on witchcraft, the girls decide to harness the book’s magic to take their power back in their own lives. With no access to birth control, the girls have been forced into the maternity home and will later be forced to give up their babies for adoption, despite their personal wishes.

As a woman, I found Hendrix’s use of body horror (a common theme across his novels) to be deeply unsettling. It’s the kind of intense, visceral writing that will make anyone squirm in their seat while also feeling sympathy for the characters as they navigate a system designed to strip them of their humanity.

Physicians and medical students will be horrified by the detached, patronizing clinical “treatment” the girls receive as clinicians weaponize their authority to maintain absolute control of both the girls’ bodies and futures. By setting the story in a historical maternity home, Hendrix reminds us of a dark chapter in medical history and highlights how easily patient autonomy can be compromised by institutional control.

“Witchcraft for Wayward Girls” might not be your typical, breezy beach read, but it delivers perfect, fast-paced summer horror energy. It’s a powerful reminder that even when all hope seems lost, the human spirit will always find a way to survive and fight back. Grab a cold drink and clear your weekend schedule, because this one will keep you up all night.

‘Wreck,’ by Catherine Newman
Recommended by: Rose Raymond, AOA content lead

This effortlessly readable novel and “New York Times” bestseller, published in 2025, explores the day-to-day realities of life in middle age and how those realities often coexist alongside tragedy and angst. Protagonist Rocky is a busy freelance writer, wife, mother of two grown children, one of whom is still at home, and daughter of a nonagenarian father who lives in her guest house. Everyday life is humming along when Rocky’s town is rattled by a tragic accident that takes the life of one of its young residents.

While reeling from this news, Rocky struggles to process the fact that one of her immediate family members may indirectly bear some responsibility for the accident. At the same time, she develops a mysterious rash that keeps spreading; she is hurled into the Byzantine world that is the modern American healthcare system.

Many readers will relate to Rocky’s frustration with navigating prior authorizations and needing to clarify her insurance coverage over and over. While dealing with this, Rocky must also live with the uncertainty that comes with not receiving a clear diagnosis or knowing if her illness might be cancer or a terminal disease.

Rocky also repeatedly receives her test results before her doctor has a chance to review them and cannot resist looking at them right away, with deep anxiety usually following:

“The final pathologic diagnosis is indeterminate, and there is a recommendation to schedule a spiral CT to assess for solid tumors and granulomatous disease process in organs. This is frightening, and I read it out loud to Nick.

“‘I don’t love solid tumors,’ I say. ‘I mean, I don’t love granulomatous disease process in organs either, but solid tumors is my least favorite.’ If he describes these results as tricky or weird or a bummer, I will surely murder him with the gigantic key I forgot to return to the innkeeper and now need to FexEx from home.” (p. 113)

While this novel centers on very heavy topics, it is ultimately an uplifting and at times funny read. The author does a wonderful job of capturing the ways humans are often required to carry on with everyday life amid darkness and complications.

Like all of us, Rocky struggles to do this at times, but I found her character to be highly relatable, and I loved the optimism and sense of humor she brought to all the challenges she faced. I could not put this book down and I highly recommend it.

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The DO Book Club, July 2025: Summer beach reads with a medical twist

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