#67 in Biography & memoir
Brain on Fire
- 288
- Pages
- about 5 h
- Reading time
- NYT bestseller · 6 weeks on the list, peaked at #3
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Our view
“Brain on Fire” is a gripping, hopeful memoir of a journalist’s descent into a rare brain inflammation and her recovery. Cahalan writes with a reporter’s care, so the book informs as much as it moves, and it leaves a strong sense of how strange the mind can be. Some readers find the opening slow before the illness takes hold of the story. For anyone drawn to true accounts of medicine and survival.
The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.
About the book
Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness is a 2012 New York Times best-selling autobiography by New York Post writer Susannah Cahalan. The book details Cahalan's struggle with a rare form of encephalitis and her recovery. It was first published on November 13, 2012, through Free Press in hardback, and was later reprinted in paperback by Simon & Schuster after the two companies merged.
Where the score comes from
The sources average 8.1 across 250 ratings — not yet many, so the reader vote carries 63% of the weight and the rest pulls toward the Biography & memoir average of 8.1. That is how 8.1 comes out.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 7.2 | 19 | 8% |
| Hardcover | 8.2 | 231 | 92% |
Frequently asked
How long is Brain on Fire?
It has 288 pages — shorter than 58% of the ranked books in Biography & memoir.
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
The same shelf — Biography & memoir — and a score of 8.1, the closest to this book.
