A book on the experience of reading Shakespeare's 'dark plays'. As part of the My Reading series, King Lear is a personal meditation on a great literary work. Arthur Frank brings a career of studying illness experience and suffering to consider how King Lear can aid people whose lives need help. Reading King Lear leads Frank to both an encounter with his own old age and a source of consolation-companionship-in his future. This book does not try to minimize vulnerabilities, but it shows what is fully human, and thus shared, in suffering. The book introduces readers to King Lear, and it invites those who know the play to a new consideration for its ability to affect people's lives.

Since it was first published in 1995, "The Wounded Storyteller" has occupied a unique place in the body of work on illness. Both the collective portrait of a "remission society" of those who suffer from some type of illness or disability and a cogent analysis of their stories within a larger framework of narrative theory, Arthur W. Frank's book has reached a large and diverse readership, including the ill, medical professionals, and scholars of literary theory. Drawing on the work of authors such as Oliver Sacks, Anatole Broyard, Norman Cousins, and Audre Lorde, as well as the people he met during the years he spent among different illness groups, Frank recounts a stirring collection of illness stories, ranging from the well-known - Gilda Radner's battle with ovarian cancer - to the private testimonials of people with cancer, chronic fatigue syndrome, and disabilities. Their stories are more than accounts of personal suffering: they abound with moral choices and point to a social ethic. In this new edition Frank adds a preface describing the personal and cultural times when the first edition was written. His new afterword extends the book's argument significantly, writing about storytelling and experience, other modes of illness narration, and a version of hope that is both realistic and aspirational. Reflecting on both his own life during the creation of the first edition and the conclusions of the book itself, Frank reminds us of the power of storytelling as way of understanding our own suffering.

Stories accompany us through life from birth to death. But they do not merely entertain, inform, or distress us - they show us what counts as right or wrong and teach us who we are and who we can be. Though stories can connect individuals, they also can disconnect, creating boundaries between people and justifying violence. In "Letting Stories Breathe", Arthur W. Frank grapples with this fundamental aspect of our lives, offering both a theory of how stories shape us and a useful method for analyzing them. Frank's unique approach uses literary concepts to ask social scientific questions: how do stories make life better, and when do they endanger it?

In this deeply affecting memoir, Arthur W. Frank explores the events of illness from within: the transformation from person to patient, the pain, the wonder,and the ceremony of recovery. To illuminate what illness can teach us about life, Frank draws upon his own encounters with serious illness -- a heart attack at age thirty-nine and, a year later, a diagnosis of cancer. In poignant and clear prose, he offers brilliant insights into what happens when our bodies and emotions are pushed to extremes. Ultimately, he examines what it means to be human.

Contemporary health care often lacks generosity of spirit, even when treatment is most efficient. Too many patients are left unhappy with how they are treated, and too many medical professionals feel estranged from the calling that drew them to medicine. Arthur W. Frank tells the stories of ill people, doctors, and nurses who are restoring generosity to medicine--generosity toward others and to themselves.
"The Renewal of Generosity" evokes medicine as the face-to-face encounter that comes before and after diagnostics, pharmaceuticals, and surgeries. Frank calls upon the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, philosopher Emmanuel Levinas, and literary critic Mikhail Bakhtin to reflect on stories of ill people, doctors, and nurses who transform demoralized medicine into caring relationships. He presents their stories as a source of consolation for both ill and professional alike and as an impetus to changing medical systems. Frank shows how generosity is being renewed through "dialogue" that is more than the exchange of information. Dialogue is an ethic and an ideal for people on both sides of the medical encounter who want to offer more to those they meet and who want their own lives enriched in the process.
"The Renewal of Generosity" views illness and medical work with grace and compassion, making an invaluable contribution to expanding our vision of suffering and healing.

Learning how to behave and engage professionally can be one of the most challenging parts of embarking on a career in the medical field. But using the 'power of stories' can teach, heal, and enlighten, encourage the development of empathy, and help healthcare providers appreciate who their patients are, not just what disease they have. The humanities offer knowledge and skills that may move students toward becoming better physicians. The incorporation of the humanities into the traditional medical education curriculum can truly make a difference. In this expansive anthology, Susan Stagno and Michael Blackie assemble an insightful group of contributors to discuss the ways in which medical professionals can powerfully engage with their students through a variety of literary texts. Examples as diverse as Charles Bukowski, Leo Tolstoy, William Carlos Williams, Sherwood Anderson, Mary Shelley, Stephen King, the comic strip Pearls Before Swine, and the sayings of Buddha will provide both teachers and students a rich cache of stories for discussion and inspiration.