Award Winning Books About Medicine and Illness

Medicine gives writers a subject where the stakes need no explaining, which is why the books here win prizes in every category. Histories of disease sit with novels about doctors and memoirs of being ill, and the epidemics turn up often enough to read as a running theme of the last century.

88 books drawn from 18 prize lists, newest first.

• 2025 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry
  New and Selected Poems by Marie Howe
• 2025 Royal Society Science Book Prize
  Our Brains, Our Selves: What a Neurologist's Patients Taught Him About the Brain by Masud Husain
• 2025 Best Books That Never Won a Prize
  The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong
• 2024 Women's Prize for Fiction
  Brotherless Night by V. V. Ganeshananthan
• 2024 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
  Night Watch by Jayne Anne Phillips
• 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature
  The Vegetarian by Han Kang
• 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
  Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
• 2022 Best Books That Never Won a Prize
  Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
• 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry
  frank: sonnets by Diane Seuss
• 2021 Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction
  Empire of Pain by Patrick Radden Keefe
• 2021 Newbery Medal
  When You Trap a Tiger by Tae Keller
• 2020 Women's Prize for Fiction
  Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell
• 2020 The Booker Prize
  Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart
• 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  Sontag: Her Life and Work by Benjamin Moser
• 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry
  The Tradition by Jericho Brown
• 2020 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction
  The Undying by Anne Boyer
• 2019 Nebula Award for Best Novel
  A Song for a New Day by Sarah Pinsker
• 2019 Newbery Medal
  Merci Suárez Changes Gears by Meg Medina
• 2019 Best Books That Never Won a Prize
  The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides
• 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry
  Half-light: Collected Poems 1965–2016 by Frank Bidart
• 2018 Royal Society Science Book Prize
  Inventing Ourselves by Sarah-Jayne Blakemore
• 2017 Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction
  How to Survive a Plague by David France
• 2015 Bram Stoker Award for Best Novel
  A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay
• 2015 Best Books That Never Won a Prize
  A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
• 2015 Pulitzer Prize for History
  Encounters at the Heart of the World: A History of the Mandan People by Elizabeth A. Fenn
• 2015 Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction
  NeuroTribes by Steve Silberman
• 2015 Nobel Prize in Literature
  Voices from Chernobyl by Svetlana Alexievich
• 2014 Women's Prize for Fiction
  A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing by Eimear McBride
• 2014 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction
  Toms River by Dan Fagin
• 2012 Bram Stoker Award for Best Novel
  The Drowning Girl by Caitlin R. Kiernan
• 2011 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction
  The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee
• 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
  Tinkers by Paul Harding
• 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry
  Versed by Rae Armantrout
• 2007 Royal Society Science Book Prize
  Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert
• 2006 Pulitzer Prize for History
  Polio: An American Story by David Oshinsky
• 2006 National Book Award for Fiction
  The Echo Maker by Richard Powers
• 2005 Newbery Medal
  Kira-Kira by Cynthia Kadohata
• 2005 Best Books That Never Won a Prize
  Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
• 2005 The Booker Prize
  The Sea by John Banville
• 2004 The Booker Prize
  The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst
• 2004 Nobel Prize in Literature
  The Piano Teacher by Elfriede Jelinek
• 2004 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry
  Walking to Martha's Vineyard by Franz Wright
• 2003 Nebula Award for Best Novel
  The Speed of Dark by Elizabeth Moon
• 2001 National Book Award for Non-Fiction
  The Noonday Demon by Andrew Solomon
• 2000 Nebula Award for Best Novel
  Darwin's Radio by Greg Bear
• 2000 Nobel Prize in Literature
  Soul Mountain by Gao Xingjian
• 1999 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
  The Hours by Michael Cunningham
• 1998 Nobel Prize in Literature
  Blindness by José Saramago
• 1997 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction
  Ashes to Ashes by Richard Kluger
• 1996 Best Books That Never Won a Prize
  Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
• 1996 Royal Society Science Book Prize
  Plague's Progress by Arno Karlen
• 1996 National Book Award for Fiction
  Ship Fever and Other Stories by Andrea Barrett
• 1995 Royal Society Science Book Prize
  The Consumer's Good Chemical Guide by John Emsley
• 1995 The Booker Prize
  The Ghost Road by Pat Barker
• 1994 Nobel Prize in Literature
  A Personal Matter by Kenzaburo Oe
• 1994 National Book Award for Non-Fiction
  How We Die by Sherwin B. Nuland
• 1993 Hugo Award for Best Novel
  Doomsday Book by Connie Willis
• 1993 Royal Society Science Book Prize
  The Making of Memory by Steven Rose
• 1993 Best Books That Never Won a Prize
  Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh
• 1992 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  Fortunate Son: The Autobiography of Lewis B. Puller Jr. by Lewis B. Puller Jr.
• 1991 Pulitzer Prize for History
  A Midwife's Tale by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich
• 1991 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry
  Near Changes by Mona Van Duyn
• 1991 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
  Rabbit at Rest by John Updike
• 1989 Nebula Award for Best Novel
  The Healer's War by Elizabeth Ann Scarborough
• 1988 Royal Society Science Book Prize
  Living with Risk by British Medical Association Board of Science
• 1985 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  The Life and Times of Cotton Mather by Kenneth Silverman
• 1984 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction
  The Social Transformation of American Medicine by Paul Starr
• 1983 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction
  Is There No Place on Earth for Me? by Susan Sheehan
• 1982 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry
  The Collected Poems by Sylvia Plath
• 1979 Hugo Award for Best Novel
  Dreamsnake by Vonda N. McIntyre
• 1978 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  Samuel Johnson by Walter Jackson Bate
• 1976 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction
  Why Survive? Being Old in America by Robert N. Butler
• 1975 National Book Award for Fiction
  The Hair of Harold Roux by Thomas Williams
• 1974 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  O'Neill, Son and Artist by Louis Sheaffer
• 1974 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction
  The Denial of Death by Ernest Becker
• 1970 The Booker Prize
  The Elected Member by Bernice Rubens
• 1969 Edgar Award for Best Novel
  A Case of Need by Michael Crichton
• 1967 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry
  Live or Die by Anne Sexton
• 1966 Nebula Award for Best Novel
  Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
• 1964 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  John Keats by Walter Jackson Bate
• 1963 Best Books That Never Won a Prize
  The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
• 1950 National Book Award for Fiction
  The Man with the Golden Arm by Nelson Algren
• 1936 Nobel Prize in Literature
  Long Day's Journey into Night by Eugene O'Neill
• 1934 Best Books That Never Won a Prize
  Tender Is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald
• 1929 Nobel Prize in Literature
  Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann
• 1926 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
  Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis
• 1926 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  The Life of Sir William Osler by Harvey Cushing
• 1924 Best Books That Never Won a Prize
  The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann