Showcasing some of the best health and medical writing in The New York Times, Tom Linden combines his expertise as both a physician and a writer to explore the range and depth of reporting and writing in this fascinating area. With more than 50 articles, the book includes coverage of topics ranging from amnesia to genomics to a Times investigation of a major pharmaceutical company.

Organized around news, features and commentary, Linden's observations elucidate the challenges these reporters face in tackling everything from nutrition to neuroscience, while his how-to guidance takes aspiring medical and health reporters to the next level. Readers will appreciate condensed interviews from five prominent Times medical and health reporters interspersed throughout the book, as well as how-to tips on 15 genres of health reporting, including blogs, essays, and alternative story forms. Linden directs the Medical and Science Journalism Program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and is a former CNBC and Los Angeles Times reporter.

MORE ABOUT TimesCollege . . . a series from CQ Press

Whether it is the arts or science, medicine or business, you'll find stories that inspire while providing readers an insider's look into the rewards, challenges and everyday routines of beat reporting. The carefully selected pieces in each Reader cover the spectrum from news to features to analysis to blogs and other online innovations. Each volume also features these elements:

- Conversations with Times writers take readers behind the scenes to learn about their goals for the beat and how they got their jobs, as well as practical nuts-and-bolts information on how they report and write for a global audience in the multimedia age.

- Story Scan disassembles stories into their component parts, labeling and analyzing the elements that make good beat stories work.

- Making Connections questions and assignments sharpen thinking and prepare students to go out on the beat to start finding their own great stories.