Susannah Cahalan tells the story of coming down with a mysterious illness that caused hallucinations, violence, and dangerous instability, and how it was diagnosed and finally treated. Her memoir Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness is an account of her struggle to recapture her identity and to piece together the story of her “lost month” and how a celebrated neurologist saved her life.

At the Miami Book Fair International, five authors of memoirs gathered to discuss their brushes with death. One of them, Benjamin Busch, author of "Dust to Dust," recounted facing death in Iraq — and then returning home from war to his own parents' deaths.