Episode · People I (Mostly) Admire · 2025-11-15
Books mentioned on Suleika Jaouad’s Survival Mechanisms (Replay)
Suleika Jaouad was diagnosed with cancer at 22. She made her illness the subject of a New York Times column and a memoir, Between Two Kingdoms.
Books mentioned, in the order they came up
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Bright-sided
Discussed“Maybe the most insidious one was stay positive, which is a byproduct of our culture of toxic positivity that Barbara Aaron Reich has written so beautifully about this idea that if you allow any bit of quote unquote negativity in, you'll somehow make your cancer worse.”
Where to get it
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Between Two Kingdoms
Between Two Kingdoms is a powerful memoir by Suleika Jaouad that chronicles her harrowing battle with leukemia, her months in isolation, and the transformative cross-country road trip she undertook to figure out how to return to normal life.
Recommended“If you like the episode, I suspect you will love her book between two kingdoms and the documentary about her and John Batis titled American Symphony, which is available on Netflix.”
Where to get it
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The Fault in Our Stars
John Green's The Fault in Our Stars is a young adult novel that follows two teenagers with terminal cancer who fall in love while navigating the profound realities of illness and mortality.
Discussed“It was during that time that I got my hands on a copy of The Faults and Our Stars. And I think I read it about half a dozen times. I loved it so much. The two young protagonists, both of whom have latestage terminal cancer diagnoses, came to feel like friends to me.”
Where to get it
Other mentions in this episode (5) — ad reads, self-promotion and passing references, never counted
Passing Between Two Kingdoms
“Her amazing memoir, Between Two Kingdoms, tells the story of her battle with cancer, as well as the challenges after years of being in and out of the hospital.”
Passing Between Two Kingdoms
“first in a blog and then in a series of New York Times columns entitled Life Interrupted and eventually in a best-selling book called Between Two Kingdoms and also of course there's the Academy Award nominated documentary American Symphony.”
Passing Between Two Kingdoms
“Since she wrote her memoir, Between Two Kingdoms, Sleek has had both a recurrence of cancer and another successful bone marrow transplant.”
Passing The Alchemy Journal
“Sleeka has had two new books come out in this past year. The first is The Book of Alchemy and the second, The Alchemy [Journal]”
Passing The Book of Alchemy
“Sleeka has had two new books come out in this past year. The first is The Book of Alchemy and the second, The Alchemy...”