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In this sweeping cultural history of nursing from the Stone Age to the present, the critically acclaimed author of Early pays homage to the profession and makes an urgent call for change.
We are pleased to welcome acclaimed author and journalist Sarah DiGregorio to the Penguin for an in-person event celebrating the release of her second book, Taking Care: The Story of Nursing and Its Power to Change Our World. Sarah will be joined by fellow author Theresa Brown to engage in conversation about her experiences in writing the book, as well as the impact nursing has on the landscape of American healthcare. The conversation will be followed by a Q&A with the audience. Guests will also have the opportunity to have copies of Taking Care signed following the conversation. We hope you'll join us!
Sarah DiGregorio is the critically acclaimed author of Early: An Intimate History of Premature Birth and What it Teaches Us About Being Human and Taking Care: The Revolutionary Story of Nursing, coming in May 2023. She is a freelance journalist who has written on health care and other topics for the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Slate, Insider, and Catapult. She lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her daughter and husband.
Theresa Brown, RN, author of the New York Times bestseller The Shift, is a New York Times contributor. Her writing also appears on CNN.com and in the American Journal of Nursing, the Journal of the American Medical Association, and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. She has been a guest on MSNBC Live and NPR’s Fresh Air. Her first book was Critical Care, and during what she calls her past life, she received a PhD in English from the University of Chicago. She lectures nationally and internationally on issues related to nursing, health care, and end of life. Find her at theresabrown.com
Nurses have always been vital to human existence. A nurse was likely there when you were born and a nurse might well be there when you die. Familiar in hospitals and doctors’ offices, these dedicated health professionals can also be found in schools, prisons, and people’s homes; at summer camps; on cruise ships, and even at NASA. Yet despite being celebrated during the Covid-19 epidemic, nurses are often undermined and undervalued in ways that reflect misogyny and racism, and that extend to their working conditions—and affect the care available to everyone. But the potential power of nursing to create a healthier, more just world endures.
The story of nursing is complicated. It is woven into war, plague, religion, the economy, and our individual lives in myriad ways. In Taking Care, journalist Sarah DiGregorio chronicles the lives of nurses past and tells the stories of those today—caregivers at the vital intersection of health care and community who are actively changing the world, often invisibly. An absorbing and empathetic work that combines storytelling with nuanced reporting, Taking Care examines how we have always tried to care for each other—the incredible ways we have succeeded and the ways in which we have failed. Fascinating, empowering and significant, it is a call for change and a love letter to the nurses of yesterday, today, and tomorrow.
