Best Popular Medicine Books on Goodreads
1. 
This is Going to Hurt: Secret Diaries of a Junior Doctor
by:
Adam Kay
4.40 avg rating — 316,894 ratings 
3. 
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales
by:
Oliver Sacks
4.05 avg rating — 239,788 ratings 4. 
Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams
by:
Matthew Walker
4.37 avg rating — 215,751 ratings 5. 
7. 
Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End
by:
Atul Gawande
4.49 avg rating — 210,878 ratings 
11. 
The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History
by:
John M. Barry
3.98 avg rating — 42,018 ratings 12. 
Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science
by:
Atul Gawande
4.28 avg rating — 51,627 ratings 13. 
Spare Parts: The Story of Medicine Through the History of Transplant Surgery
by:
Paul Craddock
3.89 avg rating — 694 ratings 
16. 
The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance
by:
Laurie Garrett
4.21 avg rating — 10,688 ratings 
18. 
Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World
by:
Tracy Kidder
4.20 avg rating — 87,482 ratings 19. 
The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York
by:
Deborah Blum
4.01 avg rating — 36,513 ratings 20. 
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures
by:
Anne Fadiman
4.20 avg rating — 87,595 ratings 21. 
Get Well Soon: History's Worst Plagues and the Heroes Who Fought Them
by:
Jennifer Wright
4.23 avg rating — 13,609 ratings 
25. 
Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How It Changed the World
by:
Laura Spinney
3.91 avg rating — 7,929 ratings 
27. 
How to Change Your Mind: The New Science of Psychedelics
by:
Michael Pollan
4.27 avg rating — 82,435 ratings 
29. 
Working Stiff: Two Years, 262 Bodies, and the Making of a Medical Examiner
by:
Judy Melinek
4.26 avg rating — 26,512 ratings 
31. 
Unnatural Causes: The Life and Many Deaths of Britain's Top Forensic Pathologist
by:
Richard Shepherd
4.32 avg rating — 46,083 ratings 32. 
Rabid: A Cultural History of the World's Most Diabolical Virus
by:
Bill Wasik
3.72 avg rating — 11,393 ratings 33. 
The Hot Zone: The Terrifying True Story of the Origins of the Ebola Virus
by:
Richard Preston
4.16 avg rating — 119,580 ratings 
36. 
Every Patient Tells a Story: Medical Mysteries and the Art of Diagnosis
by:
Lisa Sanders
3.95 avg rating — 8,730 ratings 37. 
Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic
by:
David Quammen
4.42 avg rating — 20,023 ratings 38. 
The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic—and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World
by:
Steven Johnson
3.89 avg rating — 55,256 ratings 39. 
And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic
by:
Randy Shilts
4.39 avg rating — 28,864 ratings 40. 
I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life
by:
Ed Yong
4.18 avg rating — 30,334 ratings 41. 
The Brain that Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science
by:
Norman Doidge
4.20 avg rating — 39,543 ratings 41. 
A Thousand Naked Strangers: a Paramedic's Wild Ride to the Edge and Back
by:
Kevin Hazzard
3.95 avg rating — 13,681 ratings 43. 
The Real Doctor Will See You Shortly: A Physician's First Year
by:
Matt McCarthy
4.12 avg rating — 7,450 ratings 44. 
Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death and Brain Surgery
by:
Henry Marsh
4.25 avg rating — 41,358 ratings 45. 
Gut: The Inside Story of Our Body's Most Underrated Organ
by:
Giulia Enders
4.08 avg rating — 53,719 ratings 
47. 
Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital
by:
Sheri Fink
3.93 avg rating — 39,324 ratings 
50. 
The Laws of Medicine: Field Notes from an Uncertain Science (TED Books) 4.06 avg rating — 5,072 ratings
50. 
The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma 4.36 avg rating — 255,078 ratings
55. 
An American Sickness: How Healthcare Became Big Business and How You Can Take It Back 4.30 avg rating — 7,910 ratings
57. 
Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company that Addicted America
by:
Beth Macy
4.07 avg rating — 44,184 ratings 58. 
Pandemic: Tracking Contagions, from Cholera to Ebola and Beyond
by:
Sonia Shah
4.07 avg rating — 4,009 ratings 59. 
Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President
by:
Candice Millard
4.22 avg rating — 81,268 ratings 60. 
The Butchering Art: Joseph Lister's Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine 4.31 avg rating — 21,421 ratings
62. 
Bad Pharma: How Drug Companies Mislead Doctors and Harm Patients
by:
Ben Goldacre
4.10 avg rating — 9,120 ratings 
64. 
Survival of the Sickest: A Medical Maverick Discovers Why We Need Disease
by:
Sharon Moalem
4.14 avg rating — 8,938 ratings 
66. 
Vaccinated: One Man's Quest to Defeat the World's Deadliest Diseases
by:
Paul A. Offit
4.30 avg rating — 2,129 ratings 
69. 
Dreamland: The True Tale of America's Opiate Epidemic
by:
Sam Quinones
4.23 avg rating — 31,636 ratings 70. 
The Tale of the Dueling Neurosurgeons: The History of the Human Brain as Revealed by True Stories of Trauma, Madness, and Recovery
by:
Sam Kean
4.26 avg rating — 13,462 ratings 
72. 
The Social Transformation of American Medicine: The Rise of a Sovereign Profession and the Making of a Vast Industry
by:
Paul Starr
4.17 avg rating — 1,378 ratings 73. 
Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup
by:
John Carreyrou
4.41 avg rating — 276,356 ratings 
76. 
The Demon Under the Microscope: From Battlefield Hospitals to Nazi Labs, One Doctor's Heroic Search for the World's First Miracle Drug
by:
Thomas Hager
4.09 avg rating — 5,802 ratings 77. 
Hot Lights, Cold Steel: Life, Death and Sleepless Nights in a Surgeon's First Years 4.16 avg rating — 4,935 ratings
80. 
The Panic Virus: A True Story of Medicine, Science, and Fear
by:
Seth Mnookin
4.07 avg rating — 5,763 ratings 
82. 
Flu: The Story Of the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 and the Search for the Virus That Caused It
by:
Gina Kolata
3.91 avg rating — 7,614 ratings 83. 
Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present 4.43 avg rating — 9,664 ratings
87. 
An Anthropologist on Mars: Seven Paradoxical Tales
by:
Oliver Sacks
4.15 avg rating — 23,339 ratings 87. 
The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care
by:
T.R. Reid
4.26 avg rating — 7,619 ratings 89. 
On Call: A Doctor's Days and Nights in Residency
by:
Emily R. Transue
3.90 avg rating — 2,347 ratings 
91. 
The American Plague: The Untold Story of Yellow Fever, the Epidemic that Shaped Our History 3.91 avg rating — 6,648 ratings
91. 
The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women
by:
Kate Moore
4.16 avg rating — 176,354 ratings 93. 
Patient H.M.: A Story of Memory, Madness, and Family Secrets
by:
Luke Dittrich
3.85 avg rating — 5,702 ratings 94. 
The Great Mortality: An Intimate History of the Black Death, the Most Devastating Plague of All Time
by:
John Kelly
3.89 avg rating — 11,192 ratings 95. 
Final Exam: A Surgeon's Reflections on Mortality
by:
Pauline W. Chen
3.88 avg rating — 3,358 ratings 95. 
The Knife Man: Blood, Body Snatching, and the Birth of Modern Surgery
by:
Wendy Moore
4.07 avg rating — 4,149 ratings 95. 
Another Day in the Frontal Lobe: A Brain Surgeon Exposes Life on the Inside
by:
Katrina Firlik
3.79 avg rating — 3,914 ratings 98. 
God's Hotel: A Doctor, a Hospital, and a Pilgrimage to the Heart of Medicine
by:
Victoria Sweet
4.11 avg rating — 5,837 ratings 
100. 
In Shock: My Journey from Death to Recovery and the Redemptive Power of Hope
by:
Rana Awdish
4.33 avg rating — 7,589 ratings