Home/Books about Lyme
Reading listBooks about Lyme disease, honestly described
Memoirs, investigations and science, including Kris Newby’s Bitten. Each of the eight books gets a plain description of what it argues and what to keep in mind, because Lyme books disagree with each other, sometimes sharply.
We picked books people living with Lyme actually read and talk about, from several points of view: patients telling their own stories, journalists investigating, and doctors on different sides of the debate. Including a book is not an endorsement of its medical claims. Nothing in a book replaces advice from your own healthcare provider.
Bitten
The Secret History of Lyme Disease and Biological Weapons
Kris Newby · 2019
Newby, a Stanford science writer who had Lyme herself, works through the papers of Willy Burgdorfer, the scientist who discovered the Lyme bacterium in ticks in 1981 and described it in 1982. She argues that Cold War research on weaponizing ticks deserves far more scrutiny. Readers often call it gripping and unsettling.
Keep in mind: Its central theory, that military tick research may have shaped the Lyme epidemic, is disputed by many scientists and has not been proven. Read it as an investigation that raises questions, not a settled history.
Author website · Find it at Bookshop.org · Borrow from a library
The Widening Circle
A Lyme Disease Pioneer Tells Her Story
Polly Murray · 1996
Murray was a mother in Lyme, Connecticut, whose family kept getting sick with symptoms nobody could explain. Her persistence in the 1970s helped lead researchers to identify Lyme disease. A first-hand account of being doubted, and of being right.
Keep in mind: An older book, so the medical details are dated. Its value is the story of how the disease was first noticed.
Believe Me
My Battle with the Invisible Disability of Lyme Disease
Yolanda Hadid · 2017
The former model and television personality describes years of exhausting symptoms, the search for a diagnosis, and what it felt like to look well while feeling very sick. Written for readers who feel unseen, with a strong focus on being believed.
Keep in mind: it describes treatments the author tried, some of them unconventional and not supported by CDC or IDSA guidelines. Read it as one person’s experience, not a treatment guide.
Cure Unknown
Inside the Lyme Epidemic
Pamela Weintraub · 2008, revised 2013
A science journalist whose whole family got sick tells their story alongside a deep look at the scientific and political fight over chronic Lyme. One of the most widely read books on the controversy.
Keep in mind: Written from a perspective sympathetic to patients who believe in persistent infection, a view that CDC and most infectious-disease specialists do not share.
Sick
A Memoir
Porochista Khakpour · 2018
A novelist writes about years of illness, misdiagnosis and an eventual late-stage Lyme diagnosis, and about how illness tangles with identity, addiction and being believed. Literary, raw and honest about uncertainty.
Keep in mind: A personal story rather than a guide. Some readers find its frankness about mental health and medication hard going.
Lyme
The First Epidemic of Climate Change
Mary Beth Pfeiffer · 2018
An investigative journalist looks at why ticks and Lyme are spreading, linking it to climate, land use and public health choices. Strong on the ecology of ticks and the scale of the problem.
Keep in mind: How much of the spread is driven by climate versus other factors is debated, but the spread of ticks it describes is well documented.
Lyme Disease
Why It’s Spreading, How It Makes You Sick, and What to Do About It
Alan G. Barbour, MD · 2015
A physician and researcher who has studied Lyme bacteria for decades explains the biology, the spread and the evidence on testing and treatment in plain language. Published by Johns Hopkins University Press.
Keep in mind: Reflects the mainstream scientific view. Readers looking for validation of chronic Lyme may find it frustrating, which is exactly why it’s useful alongside the others.
Why Can’t I Get Better?
Solving the Mystery of Lyme and Chronic Disease
Richard I. Horowitz, MD · 2013
A New York physician who has treated thousands of patients with persistent symptoms lays out his approach to looking for multiple overlapping causes. Popular with patients who feel dismissed.
Keep in mind: Represents the ILADS-style view that supports longer, individualized treatment. Many of its approaches are not supported by CDC or IDSA guidelines. Discuss anything you read with your own doctor.
We are collecting real experiences about the books that helped them from people who have lived it, shared with their permission. As stories come in, they will appear here, clearly marked as personal experience rather than medical advice.
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