I just read Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis, as suggested by Abraham Verghese in his NEJM article, and mentioned on this thread. I was worried I might have to force myself through it, since it was published in 1924 and some of the dialogue is old fashioned, but I got hooked almost immediately and really enjoyed it. Actually, the style seems fairly modern, it's just the language that is dated. It's funny, insightful, thoughtful. It's really interesting to see the characters dealing with many of the same issues we deal with now, like commercialism/business in medicine, the idea of "selling out", doing procedures just to make money, the pull of academics and research, etc. My biggest issue with the book is probably the wife character, who is content to just sit around and be a good wife to the main character while he goes and does his medicine and research. She does have some spunk, but for the most part she's cool with being second fiddle. I know I couldn't really expect anything else from a book written in that era, but it's a bit annoying. Otherwise, a great book!
