Alzheimer’s & Dementia

The 36-Hour Day

Nancy L. Mace & Peter V. Rabins · 1981

The definitive practical guide for families caring for someone with dementia, now in multiple updated editions, this book has helped generations of caregivers understand what is happening medically and how to navigate the daily realities — from communication strategies to practical safety concerns to the difficult decisions about long-term care. It is comprehensive without being overwhelming, and genuinely useful at every stage.

Somebody I Used to Know

Wendy Mitchell · 2018

Mitchell, diagnosed with young-onset dementia at fifty-eight, writes from inside the experience itself — describing with extraordinary clarity what it is like to watch your own mind change, and how she has continued to build a meaningful life regardless. For readers living with a diagnosis themselves, Mitchell’s first-person account is rare and invaluable; for caregivers, it offers insight into an experience usually only described from the outside.

Where the Light Gets In

Kimberly Williams-Paisley · 2016

Williams-Paisley writes about her mother’s dementia diagnosis with the particular candour of someone willing to describe the relationship as it actually was — complicated, sometimes strained, ultimately full of a love that found new forms as the disease progressed. For caregivers whose relationship with the person they are caring for was never simple, this memoir offers honest, unsentimental company.

Dementia Reimagined

Dr. Tia Powell · 2019

Powell, a physician and bioethicist, challenges the common framing of dementia as pure tragedy and loss, arguing for an approach that recognises personhood and the possibility of meaning throughout the disease’s progression. For families struggling with grief alongside care, Powell offers both medical clarity and a genuinely different way of holding the experience.

Elizabeth Is Missing

Emma Healey · 2014

Maud, in the grip of worsening dementia, is convinced something has happened to her friend Elizabeth, and the novel unfolds as both a mystery and an unusually precise portrait of what it feels like from the inside to lose your grip on time and memory. Healey never lets the device overwhelm the person, which is exactly why it works.

The Notebook

Nicholas Sparks · 1996

Best known as a love story, the novel’s quieter second half is about an elderly husband reading his own life back to his wife each day, in the hope that the story of them might reach her through the dementia that has taken so much else. It is sentimental, and it is also a fairly accurate picture of what devoted daily care can look like.