'I am a junior doctor. It is 4 a.m. I have run arrest calls, treated life-threatening bleeding, held the hand of a young woman dying of cancer, scuttled down miles of dim corridors wanting to sob with sheer exhaustion, forgotten to eat, forgotten to drink, drawn on every fibre of strength that I possess to keep my patients safe from harm.'

How does it feel to be spat out of medical school into a world of pain, loss and trauma that you feel wholly ill-equipped to handle? To be a medical novice who makes decisions which - if you get them wrong - might forever alter, or end, a person's life?

In Your Life in My Hands, television journalist turned junior doctor Rachel Clarke captures the extraordinary realities of life on the NHS frontline. During last year's historic junior doctor strikes, Rachel was at the forefront of the campaign against the government's imposed contract upon young doctors. Her heartfelt, deeply personal account of life as a junior doctor in today's NHS is both a powerful polemic on the degradation of Britain's most vital public institution and a love letter of optimism and hope to that same health service.

Barbara Maddox was living a fairly normal and happy existence. Newly married, she was reaching the pinnacle of success as a regional sales manager at a large corporation and enjoying a fun social life with family and friends. And then her body started to betray her with what she thought were work-related, stress-induced health problems. After several months of worsening symptoms and a frustrating search for answers, she found herself in the emergency room one Sunday afternoon, completely exhausted and missing half of her blood. Within two hours of testing and prodding, she learned her fate: Cancer had spread throughout her lymph nodes. Mashed Potatoes and Gravy is Barb's brave and poignant accounting of how she managed through months of aggressive chemotherapy, three hospital stays, two serious blood infections, and acute mental depression. Along the way she discovers the importance of love, family, and friends as her spiritual world expands and she asks some deep, penetrating questions about life and our very existence. Written with raw emotion, and sprinkled with a good dose of humor, her story will leave readers inspired as they cheer her on through the unpredictable twists and turns on her journey toward conquering stage IV Hodgkin's lymphoma.

Dr. Stribling was only twenty-six years old in 1836 when he became head of Western State hospital. Then, every institution for the insane in the South, and all but a very few in the remainder of the country, were little more than penitentiaries. Dr. Robert Hansen, superintendent of Western State Hospital, wrote in 1967, "In an age of the common man, Dr. Stribling possessed an uncommon and profound knowledge of human nature, and the importance of human relationships. He believed that the drives, interests, and needs of the insane were the same as those of others, and that satisfaction of them through human relationships, would help restore their reason." Stribling recognized that insanity was a disease that if treated early, was curable. He used medical and moral therapy, separately or in concert, to cure his patients. Moral medicine included early treatment, separating the violent from those who could be cured, eliminating restraints whenever possible, providing patients with nutritious food, occupation, exercise, amusements and religious services. Caretakers were instructed how to increase their patients' self-esteem, especially by being their friend. Stribling's efforts to admit only patients who could be cured resulted in a bitter dispute in the early 1840s between him and Dr. John Minson. Galt was head of Eastern State Hospital, the first institution in the Colonies built for the treatment of the insane. Soon thereafter, Stribling rewrote Virginia's laws concerning the insane to conform to his admission policies. In 1852, Stribling and his directors defended themselves against charges by Captain Randolph that they abused their patients. Randolph's son had been a patient at Western State. During the Civil War Stribling managed to provide for his patients even after Sheridan's troops sacked his hospital. The daily lives of slave servants are described and also the different approaches taken by Stribling and Galt provide for insane free blacks and insane slaves. The similarities and differences between the two young doctors are examined. (Stribling was twenty-six and Galt twenty-two when they assumed their positions.) Letters between Dr. Stribling and Dorothea Dix from 1849 until 1860 describe a deep and intimate friendship. Mrs. Stribling's letter to her eighteen-year-old son while he was a prisoner of war is probably representative of many letters from other mothers in the South and North who were in a similar situation. After the war, Stribing was successful after he petitioned Congress to keep his job. His reconciliation speech at the superintendents' meeting in Boston in 1868 was highly praised by his fellow superintendents and the Boston press. Dr. Stribling died in 1874.

It never would have occurred to me to record the story of my life; I believed it to be of little public interest . However, Professor Jonathan Halevy, director general of Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem, where I have helped to establish a center for humanistic medicine, and other friends believed otherwise. They maintained that the men and women who will learn from and be served by the institutions I have been able to help with gifts in support of humanistic values would like some idea of who I am. In response to their urging I have attempted to present an accurate portrait of a fortunate man.

Cancer stories usually start with some kind of struggle or fight. This story starts with a song. "You may ask yourself, well, how did I get here? You may say to yourself, my God, what have I done?" These words rang true for Christine Egan. Many questions and stories circulate about cancer. Are you telling yourself you are a victim of cancer? Are you worried the cancer will come back? Are you stuck in the role of being sick? Egan made a conscious choice to tell a different story. The Healthy Girl's Guide to Breast Cancer is part memoir and part guide revealing the all-too-true story of cancer in this country with a healthy twist. Rest assured-this is not a cancer story; it's a story about health and wellness.

Juliet Knowles began writing a blog about her daughter's fight with cancer as a way to reach out to others in the same situation, and her work became a personal story of survival. Now she offers her perspective on that struggle in Autumn Ivy Cannon. Juliet's daughter, Autumn, is a wonderful, beautiful, and strong little girl who had a very rough and exhausting fourth year of her life. She was diagnosed with a form of kidney cancer just two months after her fourth birthday.

For Juliet, hearing that her child had cancer seemed unbelievable, unmanageable, and unreal. It felt as if she were witnessing someone else's life from a distance, something she believes was a way of protecting her own emotions from the tragedy. Now, looking back, she recalls her experiences of facing that tremendous challenge and learning of her own capacity for strength and endurance.

Juliet began writing during Autumn's cancer diagnosis and treatment in the beginning of 2011. It was an intense year, full of anxiety and frustration as well as moments of truly understanding both life's brevity and its greatness. Sifting through photos and rereading the passages she wrote during the past year throughout Autumn's recovery has helped her to heal, reach out, and share her story with others.