Any Good Books to Read?

TheElement said:

My internship at the hospital just ended and now I'm left with a lot of free time. I been awhile since I've read a really good book, the latest ones I've read aside from HP have been Dan Brown's books. (Yeah, I don't read very much, well if you don't count sport related articles).

Does anyone know of any really good books lately? it doesn't have to be medically related.

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Atlas Shrugged.

The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins (I assume you know what this is)

Tricks of the Mind by Derren Brown (famous English magiciain/illusionist/"mentalist" who discusses all of the crazy psychological workings of the human mind in easy-to-read and often hilarious format; discusses memory techniques, explains and debunks magic by describing techniques and why they work, etc.)

The Revolution by Ron Paul (no explanation necessary, I sincerely hope)

TheElement said:

My internship at the hospital just ended and now I'm left with a lot of free time. I been awhile since I've read a really good book, the latest ones I've read aside from HP have been Dan Brown's books. (Yeah, I don't read very much, well if you don't count sport related articles).

Does anyone know of any really good books lately? it doesn't have to be medically related.

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I have to say, I dislike whenever these posts are set up. Not because I don't support people reading; by all means, get on with that. But these threads always solicit a lot of inappropriate suggestions/ridiculous recommendations. It's always a matter of time before someone casually drops some Ayn Rand literary sprawl or the like.

Stepping off the soapbox, if you're looking for new material to read, start with periodicals. The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The New Republic, all have fantastic material on the net free of charge (although the NY is kind of hit or miss). Slate in particular has great material from a variety of fantastic writers (Hitchens, Harford, Saletan).

Edit: I started writing this before nycfella posted. Proof of principle.

If you can find this book you won't be dissapointed.

The century of the surgeon by Jurgen Tharwald

Manhunt...
An account of Abe Lincoln's assassination. Increbily detailed.

I just read For Whom the Bell Tolls. It's excellent.

I am reading an interesting book called "The heart speaks" written by the founder of the Scripps Center for Integrative Medicine. Nothing mind blowing but she brings up some good points.

If you are interested in African history, I'm also reading a good book about the Rwandan genocide called "I wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families". It's not like a normal history book, and reads more like a novel. But is very informative and is quite popular in the "african history" crowd.

nycfella said:

Atlas Shrugged.

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If the OP admits to being not much of a reader and is interested in Harry Potter and Dan Brown (gasp) I don't think a 645,000 word novel with a 30 page monologue is really a good suggestion. I read fairly often and Atlas Shrugged was the hardest book I've ever read. Ayn Rand tends to repeat herself over and over to the point of annoyance.

As for the original suggestion, try Tom Clancy or Michael Crichton, both easy reading and fun. You could spend months reading the Jack Ryan series alone, just do it in order. Crichton just has alot of good novels, State of Fear is good and I really liked The Great Train Robbery.

An even easier fiction series to read is the Lord Ramage series by Dudley Pope. Think of these as the kid version of Master and Commander, everything is explained so you're not trying to decipher nautical slang and read a novel at the same time like O'Brian.

Some good non-fiction:
The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene
It's a physics book, I'm not gonna lie, but it's all about how the universe is put together and whatnot. Probably one of the best explanations of relativity I've ever seen.

Dragons of Eden by Carl Sagan
It's about the evolution of human intelligence. Not hard to read or understand, just lots of interesting things about your own brain.

Freakonomics and The World is Flat (I forget the authors) are both good books about the world around us. Impress your friends with your knowledge of world affairs type stuff.

Great Expectations. Best book I've ever read. Though I've only ever read 6 books in my life. And all of them were for pre-med engilish class.

Still, good book.

Reinventing Collapse: The Soviet Example and American Prospects by Dmitry Orlov

The Revolution: A Manifesto by Ron Paul

Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai by Yamamoto Tsunetomo

Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared M Diamond

Geography of Nowhere: The Rise and Decline of America's Man-Made Landscape by James Howard Kunstler

Shantaram...By Gregory David Roberts...Absolutely loved it....so much that I read it when I should have been preparing for the MCATs...and i got behind so had to postpone the MCAT date!!

Hate to spew the Rand stuff...but Atlas Shrugged is a good read if you're up for it.

Now that THAT'S out of the way, I recommend Crime & Punishment, The God Delusion, Battle Royale, Fight Club, Survivor, and The Stand!

I forgot to mention, Rainbow Six by Tom Clancy is full of win, I LOVE that book.

Invisible Monsters is a better Palahniuk than Fight Club, but only if you like reading about transsexuals and the fashion industry
Choke should be required reading for pre-meds, as a cautionary tale against flunking medical school.

The last great book I finished was Slow Man by Coetzee, ,a fantastic book about aging. Good for future doctors interested in geriatrics. Of course, more generally it's an exercise in postmodernism, but whatever.
Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami (translated by Phillip Gabriel) is also very unusual (and therefore good) popular novel.

I could go on for a while, being an English major and all.

-Great Expectations is pretty good
-The Great Gadsby is good
-Catcher in the Rye is really interesting
-Night (about a boy in a concentration camp) is very interesting as well
-Stiff by Mary Roach is a funny take on human autopsys and bodies in science
- The Year of Living Biblically by A.J. Jacobs is really funny, even if you aren't religious
- The Kite Runner is an amazing book and the movie is very close to the book
-Nickle and Dimed really shows what it life is like living pay check to pay check
- The Giver a lower level book, but very strange
- Any book by Ann Rule is good (especially the True Crimes series)
- Everythings Eventual by Stephen King
- Geralds Game by Stephen King
- A Child Called It is a very sad look into child abuse
- Running With Scissors is funny, who knows if its fully true
hmm...I've read a lot more books than I thought. I've read a bunch more but I can't remember them all

I was going to mention Palahniuk.

So far I've read Fight Club and Haunted. Both were great, and I have Choke sitting on my bookshelf next to me, but I have other stuff to read before I get to that. He's a great writer, though I've heard some people argue that "all of his books are the same". I completely disagree. Sure, his style is the same, but what author completely alters their approach for each piece of literature? That's just silly.

I'm supposed to read Oedipus Rex and Antigone for AP Literature this summer, but I haven't gotten around to them just yet. They're both plays so I figure that they'll be short reads with easy interpretations.

The Last Patriot by Brad Thor (great if you like thrillers), currently a NYTimes Best Seller. You will learn about Islam too if that is of any interest.

Artimacia said:

-Great Expectations is pretty good
-The Great Gadsby is good
-Catcher in the Rye is really interesting
-Night (about a boy in a concentration camp) is very interesting as well
-Stiff by Mary Roach is a funny take on human autopsys and bodies in science
- The Year of Living Biblically by A.J. Jacobs is really funny, even if you aren't religious
- The Kite Runner is an amazing book and the movie is very close to the book
-Nickle and Dimed really shows what it life is like living pay check to pay check
- The Giver a lower level book, but very strange
- Any book by Ann Rule is good (especially the True Crimes series)
- Everythings Eventual by Stephen King
- Geralds Game by Stephen King
- A Child Called It is a very sad look into child abuse
- Running With Scissors is funny, who knows if its fully true
hmm...I've read a lot more books than I thought. I've read a bunch more but I can't remember them all

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Gerald's game is freaky.
Agree on great gatsby and Great expectations. Sort of nickle and dimed-- it was ok.
Thie giver is ok, i read it in middle school.


Anna Karenina (my favorite book)
winter of our discontent -steinbeck
lve in the time of cholera
wuthering heights (i loved it, i know ppl who dislike it though)

Wow. I really need to read more. Hopefully when I get some time off from school/ECs, I'll take some of your guys' suggestions.

I know you said it didn't have to be medically related but White Coat by Ellen Lerner Rothman is a good book. It takes you through her journey through Harvard med school.

Also, i read these when I was younger but the Ender's Game series by Orson Scott Card is really good sci-fi.

On the Genealogy of Morality - Nietzsche

Artimacia said:

-Great Expectations is pretty good
-The Great Gadsby is good
-Catcher in the Rye is really interesting
-Night (about a boy in a concentration camp) is very interesting as well
-Stiff by Mary Roach is a funny take on human autopsys and bodies in science
- The Year of Living Biblically by A.J. Jacobs is really funny, even if you aren't religious
- The Kite Runner is an amazing book and the movie is very close to the book
-Nickle and Dimed really shows what it life is like living pay check to pay check
- The Giver a lower level book, but very strange
- Any book by Ann Rule is good (especially the True Crimes series)
- Everythings Eventual by Stephen King
- Geralds Game by Stephen King
- A Child Called It is a very sad look into child abuse
- Running With Scissors is funny, who knows if its fully true
hmm...I've read a lot more books than I thought. I've read a bunch more but I can't remember them all

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This is probably a good list for you, from what it sounds like you've read and like. Definitely pick up Kite Runner and its sequel, along with The Giver and its sequel. Night is probably not something you want to read for pleasure, it's pretty dark. Catcher in the Rye and The Great Gatsby are classics which are also pretty easy reads. None of these are too much above the reading level of the HP books but have better/ more serious storylines.

nina7123 said:

I am reading an interesting book called "The heart speaks" written by the founder of the Scripps Center for Integrative Medicine. Nothing mind blowing but she brings up some good points.

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I love that book, The Heart Speaks. It's so good...like my favorite!

This one is medicine-related, but Complications by Atul Gawande was really quite interesting.

Carlin said:

This one is medicine-related, but Complications by Atul Gawande was really quite interesting.

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Yea Atul Gawande is an excellent writer

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. Classic.

Other good authors:
Carl Hiaasen (he's a riot)
Michael Crichton (good medically related stuff)
John Grisham (if you don't mind reading about lawyers)
Khaled Hosseini (Kite Runner/1000 Splendid Suns)

so those are a bit more mainstream, author wise (I could suggest Dostoevsky, but that's a bit too much of a departure from J.K. Rowling)

The Twilight Series by Stephanie Myer is good if you are a girl (it's kinda like a romance novel version of harry potter).

Also, George R. R. Martin's series Song of Ice and Fire is really fun if you like medieval stuff (it's fantasy but without magic/or magical creatures-for the most part). It's all about politics.

The series "Everworld" is really good if you like Adolescent Lit.

(I actually really like Ayn Rand, but I agree that these posts usually turn into big arguments about her. So I won't tell you to read any of those books).

I'm currently reading Lolita....which sucks.

I agree with the above poster. George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire is an excellent series so far. I am antsy waiting on the next book in the series. Not too much magical type stuff, but it is a very good story. Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series is also good.

im about halfway through gawande's better....it's a pretty interesting read

The Lovely Bones is a great read...it's heavy material but really well written and a pretty easy read...I found it hard to put down and finished it in under 2 days. I think they're coming out with a movie version of it next year.

Also, the tv show 'bones' is based on a book series written by Kathy Reichs. I've only read a few of them but they were interesting reads. There a little different from the show, and I actually think I like the show better, but the books are still interesting in their own right.

Other people have mentioned The Giver....this is my alltime favorite book. It is written for a younger age group, but there are some pretty heavy social commentaries and a lot of layers to the book.

The Stephanie Meyers Series - the fourth and supposedly final book just came out last night. The first book is called Twilight.

foster033 said:

The Lovely Bones is a great read...it's heavy material but really well written and a pretty easy read...I found it hard to put down and finished it in under 2 days. I think they're coming out with a movie version of it next year.

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Amazing book.

The Game by Neil Strauss, it'll help you with your interviews.

TupacalipseT96 said:

Great Expectations. Best book I've ever read. Though I've only ever read 6 books in my life. And all of them were for pre-med engilish class.

Still, good book.

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I'm a little surprised you aren't better read based on your resume, but out of curiosity what are the other 5?

nycfella said:

Atlas Shrugged.

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I second this one...great book!

may I also suggest David Copperfield and War and Peace?

Has anyone yet mentioned "House of God" by Samuel Shem? The book is fantastic, insightful and fairly easy to get through.

Begaster said:

Take it from someone who teaches the Verbal section of the MCAT, people who are actually well-read are few and far between, regardless of their otherwise impressive credentials. The majority of my classes have maybe one or two truly articulate, learned people, and 25+ bright guys and gals who are completely apathetic about the world around them.

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I'm always amazed when I meet very intelligent people who haven't read a book since their last English class in high school. Or, if they have read something, they stick to NY Times fiction bestsellers only (not that there's anything inherently wrong with reading those types of books).

I also teach verbal classes and I always tell my students to go read something out of their comfort zone. I usually get a lot of eye-rolling at that one.

beachblonde said:

I'm always amazed when I meet very intelligent people who haven't read a book since their last English class in high school. Or, if they have read something, they stick to NY Times fiction bestsellers only (not that there's anything inherently wrong with reading those types of books).

I also teach verbal classes and I always tell my students to go read something out of their comfort zone. I usually get a lot of eye-rolling at that one.

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I just never understood the appeal of reading. There are more enjoyable ways to gain exposure to the world, or whatever your perceived use for reading is beyond entertainment. And there are more entertaining things, too for that matter.

I've many times imagined my self being all intellectual and sitting with prescription glasses reading Moby Dick and laughin pretentiously to myself in quiet english chuckles.

But then after 20 minutes I remember how bored I am, and that I don't need glasses.

*shrugs*

Handy388 said:

The Game by Neil Strauss, it'll help you with your interviews.

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Not if your interviewer is the same sex as you are. Recommended nonetheless

TupacalipseT96 said:

I just never understood the appeal of reading. There are more enjoyable ways to gain exposure to the world, or whatever your perceived use for reading is beyond entertainment. And there are more entertaining things, too for that matter.

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To each his own, but how else do people get exposed to the world, short of travel or acquaintances/friends? Watching movies and TV shows doesn't match the depth and breadth of reading.