Midwifery fiction and nonfiction
Explore the best midwifery books with our curated list of fiction and nonfiction titles. Discover compelling stories, expert insights, and essential reads for aspiring midwives and birth enthusiasts.
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Midwives
by Chris Bohjalian
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • This modern classic from the author of The Flight Attendant is a compulsively readable novel that explores questions of human responsibility that are as fundamental to our society now as they were when the book was first published. A selection of Oprah's original Book Club that has sold more than two million copies. On an icy winter night in an isolated house in rural Vermont, a seasoned midwife named Sibyl Danforth takes desperate measures to save a baby’s life. She performs an emergency cesarean section on a mother she believes has died of stroke. But what if—as Sibyl's assistant later charges—the patient wasn't already dead? The ensuing trial bears the earmarks of a witch hunt, forcing Sibyl to face the antagonism of the law, the hostility of traditional doctors, and the accusations of her own conscience. Exploring the complex and emotional decisions surrounding childbirth, Midwives engages, moves, and transfixes us as only the very best novels ever do. Look for Chris Bohjalian's new novel, The Lioness!
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House Calls and Hitching Posts
by Dorcas Hoover
Medical technology meets rural values of simplicity, home health remedies, and unwavering faith in divine providence when a country-boy-turned-country-doctor returns to his roots. House Calls and Hitching Posts is a sometimes humorous and often intimate account of Dr. Elton Lehman's 36 years practicing medicine among the Amish of Wayne, Holmes, and surrounding counties in Ohio, for which he was named Country Doctor of the Year. Now you can witness house calls and private moments between doctors and patients. Joe brings his dismembered fingers to the office in a coffee can filled with kerosene. Katie delivers a boy for the doctor's first home-birth. And three-year-old Davy rallies to overcome a life-threatening illness at birth only to be crushed under a tractor wheel. Hoover captures in sometimes local vernacular the joys and dilemmas of a family practitioner among a rural and predominantly-Amish community. Includes two galleries of photographs from Dr. Lehman's distinguished career. Skyhorse Publishing, along with our Arcade, Good Books, Sports Publishing, and Yucca imprints, is proud to publish a broad range of biographies, autobiographies, and memoirs. Our list includes biographies on well-known historical figures like Benjamin Franklin, Nelson Mandela, and Alexander Graham Bell, as well as villains from history, such as Heinrich Himmler, John Wayne Gacy, and O. J. Simpson. We have also published survivor stories of World War II, memoirs about overcoming adversity, first-hand tales of adventure, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.
Book
The Blue Cotton Gown
by Patricia Harman
A nurse-midwife takes readers behind the exam room door of her rural West Virginia clinic in this “utterly true and lyrical” memoir (Jacquelyn Mitchard, author of The Deep End of the Ocean) As a nurse-midwife and the manager of a women’s health clinic in West Virginia, Patricia “Patsy” Harman bears witness to the struggles and triumphs of every woman who walks through her exam room door. She sees Heather, a teenager pregnant with twins, through the loss of both babies and their father. She cares for Nila—a longtime patient who must try to make a new life without her abusive husband—and helps Kaz transition into a new body. The only thing more varied than these women’s backgrounds are their stories, which they share with Patsy inside her small clinic, covered only by a blue cotton gown. In her memoir, Patsy juxtaposes these heartbreaking and uplifting tales with her own story of keeping a small medical practice solvent. She recounts conversations with her patients over the course of a year and a quarter—a time when her own life seems on the brink of collapse due to financial troubles, malpractice threats, serious medical problems, and marital strife. Honest, compassionate, and wise, The Blue Cotton Gown is an unforgettable memoir that shines a light on the varied experiences of women everywhere. “In her sweetly perceptive memoir, Harman reveals how her exam room becomes a confessional . . . she reminds [women] that they’re not alone.” —People
