humuhumu said:
I second The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. Amazing read.
I'm surprised no one has mentioned Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science. This book should be required reading for all premeds.
The next book on my list is The Lost Art of Healing: Practicing Compassion in Medicine.
Other nonfiction I've enjoyed in recent years:
Stiff: The Curious Lives of Cadavers
Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America
Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal
Eat, Drink, and Be Healthy: The Harvard Medical School Guide to Healthy Eating
As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl
Genie: a Scientific Tragedy
Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
Why We Get Sick: The New Science of Darwinian Medicine
The Moral Animal: Why We Are, the Way We Are: The New Science of Evolutionary Psychology
Fast Food Nation is an awesome book. Read it and then also read
The Botany of Desire. They go well together. And, as somebody else mentioned,
Silent Spring is good to read around the same time.
As Nature Made Him is worth reading. It's such a sad story. It was written a few years ago, before the guy killed himself.
Guns, Germs, and Steel is one of my favorite books ever.
Collapse is pretty good, although I agree with a later poster that it does drag some. I still think it's worth reading. Not as good as Guns, though.
Okay, the reason I DON"T like
Nickel and Dimed: The author is completely full of herself. She repeatedly mentions that she has a high degree and a personal trainer, and sets herself apart from the "lowly people" that she's supposedly trying to live like. She has a very condescending manner towards them. The concept of the book is great, because more people need to know that it's impossible to live on minimum wage, but I really don't think it's executed well.
As for other posters' suggestions:
A Short History of Nearly Everything is definitely a must read!
Mountains Beyond Mountains is good, too. I like that Tracy Kidder was an impartial observer, so we see Paul Farmer for his wonderful qualities and also his flaws. I can't imagine how he spent half (or most?) of the year away from his wife and child!
When I first started reading the Orson Scott Card books I enjoyed them (the Alvin Maker series, etc.), but as each series progresses it gets more heavy-handed Mormon. I don't mind that the stories follow Mormon storylines, but they get very preachy. And the Alvin Maker series has this very unrealistic, idealistic portrayel of American Indians. Like they were the keepers of the land who everybody should try to emulate; I've since read some books on American Indian history, and not only do they point out that this isn't true, they discuss how condescending this is (to assume that original American Indian societies were either better or worse than any other societies, rather than simply looking at the societies for what they were). I do like
Ender's Game though. I didn't read the others because I heard they weren't nearly as good.
Sorry for the long post!
😳 One other thing: for anybody who has read
The DaVinci Code, you remember the Opus Dei sect that had its headquarters in Manhattan? Well, that building is actually directly next door (connected) to my main college building. It was built/fixed up while I was a student, and the rumor was that some secretive monks were living in there. But you never see them (although my friend did see them walking in circles in a back garden from an office window once). We didn't know much about them. I was so surprised to read about that same building in The DaVinci Code! What's really funny is that my college was an all-women's Orthodox Jewish school, and it was connected to the headquarters of a somewhat fanatical sect of Catholic monks
another of my kind. the reason its tough to mandate it for everyone is its length...to tell the truth im only halfway through it 
