Show Notes
Strikingly clear, humane and helpful, this is an essential book for anyone seeking to understand autism and the autistic spectrum. Drawing on many years of clinical experience and research, as well as the testimonies of autistic people, Autisms (Penguin, 2026) is an up-to-the minute account of the many indicative features of autism and how they have been assessed and treated over almost a century.
As rates of autism diagnosis escalate in almost all high-income countries, researchers today mostly agree that there is no single cause or even single clinical picture of autism. Rather than a neat and well-defined entity, autism is described as a spectrum or constellation of traits, varying in intensity, distribution and severity, with practically everyone in the general population showing at least some autistic trait or feature.
At the same time, there has been a radical split between the ways in which autism is perceived. For many, it is a disorder, a pathology based on a deficit, whereas for others it is an identity, a natural variation in human cognitive and behavioural diversity.
For anyone facing the special challenges of autism, it can be hard to find clarity amid such complexity and contradiction, making Darian Leader’s illuminating guide to the field of autism research and treatment particularly welcome.
More from New Books in Medicine
Based on the groundbreaking podcast of the same name, Last Day: How to Stop Losing Our Loved Ones to the Opioid Crisis (Gallery/Lemonada Books, 2026) is borne of Stephanie Wittels Wachs’s determination to shed light on the ongoing opioid epidemic in America. After the tragic and untimely death of her brother Harris Wittels to an opioid overdose, Stephanie connected with Jessica Cordova Kramer, whose brother died under nearly identical circumstances. Together they launched Last Day, a podcast that facilitates unflinching conversations with addiction specialists, harm reductionists, people in long-term recovery, public policy experts pushing for reform, and many others, to determine what could have saved their brothers lives and how we can prevent overdose deaths moving forward. This August, Steph published a book by the same name. Last Day weaves together a heartbreaking story of personal loss and an unflinching investigation of what could have prevented it. Alongside expert voices on opioid addiction, this book issues a clarion call for change in an ongoing and overwhelming opioid crisis.
Chekhov liked to joke that he was a doctor by profession and merely did literary work in his spare time. Behind the joke lies an intriguing truth. We remember Chekhov as a towering literary figure, but medicine and humanitarian work occupied much of his life and profoundly shaped the way he encountered human suffering.
In this special installment of the University of Notre Dame Press's Books for Better Understanding, Paul Scherz, the Our Lady of Guadalupe Professor of Theology with the University of Notre Dame, and Travis Pickell, Assistant Professor at George Fox University, get together to discuss their books, The Ethics of Precision Medicine: The Problems of Prevention in Healthcare, and Burdened Agency: Christian Theology and End-of-Life Ethics, both available from the University of Notre Dame Press.
In this episode of In Conversation, Lilyanna D'Amato speaks with Paul Kelton about his new book, Hidden Terrors: The Scourge of Cholera in Jackson's America (Oxford UP, 2026), which traces the arrival of the first cholera pandemic in the United States, in the 1830s. Drawing on various historical documents, including family papers, letters, and newspaper accounts from the time, Kelton examines how ordinary Americans reacted to the strange disease and how the country’s ideologies and inequalities resulted in loss of life on a mass scale.
As overdose deaths continue to mount and debates rage over harm reduction, drug policy, and homelessness, Hit Doctors: Care, Harm, and the Art of Survival (U California Press, 2026) offers a crucial on-the-ground perspective pointing to a humane future.