Overbooked Book Lists

Epilepsy Booklist

Page Modified: June 19, 2009

Fiction

• The Master of Petersburg
  Author: Coetzee, J.M.
  Publisher: Viking $ 21.95 ISBN: 0670855871 Date: 1994
  PW
  The acclaimed author of Waiting for the Barbarians and Life & Times of Michael K enters the world and mind of Fyodor Dostoevsky. Set in 1869, when Dostoevsky was summoned from Germany back to St. Petersburg by the sudden death of his stepson, this book is at once a compelling mystery and a brilliant and courageous meditation on authority and rebellion, art and imagination.
  Updated 10.24.05
• Seizure
  Author: Cook, Robin
  Publisher: Putnam $ 24.95 ISBN: 0399148760 Date: 2003
  Torn from the headlines, Seizure is a cautionary tale for a time where biotechnology pulls readers into a promising yet frightening new world. Politics, religion, and bioscience collide in this latest medical thriller from the master in the field.
  Updated 10.24.05
• Improbable
  Author: Fawer, Adam
  Publisher: Morrow $ 24.95 ISBN: 0060736771Date: 2005
  David Caine, a compulsive gambler plagued by crippling epileptic seizures, gets more than he bargained for while testing an experimental medicine. Unsure whether he's perceiving an alternate reality or suffering a psychotic breakdown, Caine discovers that powerful forces want him for their own. A highly original debut novel by an aspiring new talent.
  Updated 10.24.05
• Lying Awake
  Author: Salzman, Mark
  Publisher: Knopf $ 21 ISBN: 0375406328 Date: 2000
  Booklist
  In a Carmelite monastery outside present-day Los Angeles, Sister John of the Cross experiences visions of such dazzling power and insight that she is considered a spiritual master. But they are accompanied by powerful headaches, and when a doctor reveals they may be dangerous, she faces a devastating choice since she fears a "cure" may end her spiritual gifts.
  Suggested Reading: Questions of Faith
  Updated 10/4/00
• How Evan Broke His Head
  Author: Stein, Garth
  Publisher: Soho $ 25 ISBN: 1569473900 Date: 2005
  Offbeat and disarming, this novel portrays a contemporary American family with unfailing honesty, suggesting that maybe being a father means being there for your child, no matter how belatedly you arrive.
  Updated 10.24.05

For Kids

• Pagan's Scribe
  Author: Jinks, Catherine
  Publisher: Candlewick $ 16.99 ISBN: 076362022XDate: 2005
  Kirkus
  In this much-anticipated final chapter of the Pagan Chronicles, Pagan Kidrouk is now older, wiser, and the Archdeacon of Carcassonne. Impressed by the bookish Isidore, he hires the boy as his scribe, and leads him out of the world of books to brave the real-life dangers of a papal crusade.
  Grades: 7-12 Category: Fiction | Historical
• The Last Book in the Universe
  Author: Philbrick, W.R.
  Publisher: Blue Sky $ 16.95 ISBN: 0439087589 Date: 2001
  Best Books for Young Adults | VOYA Best Genre Books
  After an earthquake has destroyed much of the planet, an epileptic teenager nicknamed Spaz begins the heroic fight to bring human intelligence back to the Earth of a distant future.
  Grades: 4-7 Category: Fiction | Speculative
• Prince Across the Water
  Author: Yolen, Jane & Robert J. Harris
  Publisher: Philomel $ 18.99 ISBN: 0399238972 Date: 2004
  Booklist
  Following their much-acclaimed The Queen's Own Fool and Girl in a Cage, Yolen and Harris craft their most chilling and affecting story yet in their adventure-filled Scottish Quartet.
  Grades: 4-7 Category: Fiction | Historical

Nonfiction

• Epileptic
  Author: B., David
  Publisher: Pantheon $ 25 ISBN: 0375423184 Date: 2005
  PW Kirkus Booklist
  With stunning black-and-white illustrations, a noted cartoonist chronicles growing up with an epileptic older brother. The author charts his complicated relationship with his brother from childhood to adulthood, and the effects of the illness on the entire family.
  Suggested Reading: All Stars | Graphic Novels and Comic Stars | Memoir Stars
  Updated 12.25.04
• The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures
  Author: Fadiman, Anne
  Publisher: FSG $ 25 ISBN: 0374267812 Date: 1997
  Kirkus LJ
  Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction, this brilliantly reported and beautifully crafted book explores the clash between a medical center in California and a Laotian refugee family over their care of a child--and the lack of understanding that led to tragedy.
  Updated 10.25.05
• Lying
  by Slater, Lauren
  Publisher: Random House $ 21.95 ISBN: 0375501126 Date: 2000
  PW
  "The beauty of Lauren Slater's prose is shocking", said Newsday about Welcome to My Country. And now, in this unusual memoir, Slater - diagnosed with a strange illness afflicting her memory - brilliantly explores a mind under siege, telling her personal story of seizures, diagnoses, misdiagnosis and cures.
  Suggested Reading: Memoir Stars