Book Suggestions

The Northwest Kidney Center has many books available for lending to patients and their families. Please contact us for recommendations of titles concerning your specific needs or situation.

Patient Resource Library Items and
Checkout Process

You can borrow library materials three different ways.

1. Come to the library in the 3rd floor lobby of NKC Haviland Kidney Center at 700 Broadway, Seattle.
2. Call the NKC receptionist at (206) 292-2771 to have items sent to you at your center.
3. We can mail materials to your home with a postage-paid return envelope.

Library items are checked out for the following lengths of time:

• Written material for one month.

• Videos or audiotapes for one week.


Books: Available library books about kidney disease, failure, and treatment

• Between Hello and Goodbye: A Life-Affirming Story of Courage in the Face of Tragedy, by Jean Craig
• Cuando Fallan sus Rinones, by Mickie Hall Faris, MPH, MBA (also available in English)
• Finding the Way Home: A Compassionate Approach to Illness, by Gayle Heiss, 1997
• Kidney Dialysis and Transplants, by Andy Stein, MD, and Janet Wild
• Meetings at the Edge, by Stephen Levine
• Polycystic Kidney Disease Patient’s Manual: Understanding and Living with Polycystic Kidney Disease, by Irene Duley, RN, and Patricia Gabow, MD, The Polycystic Kidney Research Foundation
• Surviving Your Spouse’s Chronic Illness: A Compassionate Guide, by Chris McGonigle, PhD
• Taking Time for Me: How Caregivers Can Effectively Deal with Stress, by Katherine Karr, 1992
• Understanding Your New Life with Dialysis, by Edith and Terry Oberly
• When Your Kidneys Fail, by Mickie Hall Faris, MPH, MBA (also in Spanish)
• We Are Not Alone: Learning to Live with Chronic Illness, by Sefra Kobrin Pitzele, 1986
• You Are Not Your Illness: 7 Principles for Meeting the Challenge, by Linda Noble Topf, MA 

Books on Audiotape: Some patients find listening to a book-on-tape an entertaining way to pass the time while under going dialysis.

• Alaska, by James A. Michener, 3 hours
• Four Short Stories, by Agatha Christie, 2 hours
• The Golden Age of Comedy, 30 top personalities, 2 hours
• The Hunt for Red October, by Tom Clancy, 2 2/3 hours
• The Icarus Agenda, by R. Ludlum, 3 hours
• It Was on Fire When I Lay Down on It, by Robert Fulgum, 1 1/2 hours
• Patriot Games, by Tom Clancy, 3 hours
• A Prairie Home Companion: 2nd Annual Farewell, by Garrison Keillor, 2 1/2 hours
• Presumed Innocent, by Scott Turow, 3 hours
• Red Storm Rising, by Tom Clancy, 2 hours
• Star Trek: Strangers From the Sky, 1 1/2 hours
• Texas, by James A. Michener, 3 hours
• Veil: The Secret Wars of the CIA 1981 – 1987, by Robert Woodward, 3 hours, 1987