Good Reads

[Shredder]

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freakonomics was good....i agree.

freakonomics was ok, it was kind of random and i didnt take much value out of it except for trivia. the name part was interesting, i didnt like the crack and gangster part though.

i thought two other recent bestsellers were better, The Wisdom of Crowds and The World is Flat

 

[indo]

freakonomics was ok, it was kind of random and i didnt take much value out of it except for trivia. the name part was interesting, i didnt like the crack and gangster part though.

i thought two other recent bestsellers were better, The Wisdom of Crowds and The World is Flat

I love random trivia like that. I didn't think there were enough details on all the research but it was an interesting read.

 

[CuddlyKumquat]

I love random trivia like that. I didn't think there were enough details on all the research but it was an interesting read.

Heard about this book, what is the general gist of it?


off topic but, this is definitely the best smilie on this whole set:

 

[radioh3ad]

i highly recommend Geek Love by Katherine Dunn

unreal characters but genuine souls.

 

[63768]

bookmarking this thread. once i finish applying and such i will have a ton of free time on my hands. and i'll finally be able to read for pleasure again.

 

[Will Hunting]

bookmarking this thread. once i finish applying and such i will have a ton of free time on my hands. and i'll finally be able to read for pleasure again.

same 👍

 

[kstone13]

Garfield.

 

[silas2642]

I'm thinking that a forum with a bunch of premeds such as myself will have interesting/ influential books they've read and would like to share these. I wanted to list a few that I've read and hopefully get some feedback as to more, as I will need something to keep my mind off of waiting to hear from med schools this application season! Anyways, in no particular order, here's some of my more recent reads...

The Einstein Factor
For Whom the Bell Tolls
The Sun Also Rises
The Nick Adams Stories
Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming
The Island of the Colorblind
The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

Hopefully you all can give me some great suggestions. Good luck to all those applying this year!

Gesundheit! by Patch Adams
Kill as Few Patients as Possible by Oscar London
The House of God by Samuel Shem
An Unquiet Mind by Kay Redfield Jamison
To Kill a Mockingbird
The Cobra Event
Hot Zone
Doctor Generic by Oscar London
Complications by Atul Gawande

 

[BaylorGuy]

Brave New World
1984
Slaughterhouse V
Ender's Game series
Confederacy of Dunces

 

[Avalanche21]

EVERYBODY should read Atlas Shrugged.

Although I enjoyed reading both Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead, I think Ayn Rand is very superficial in her philosophy. She has some good points, but I think she twists many thing. It's ironic that I enjoyed the books yet disagree soo much.

 

[subtle1epiphany]

Try the book Warriors of G-d
it's very well written and a fascinating read

 

[drdr2010]

I'm a big fan of the nonfiction lately:
Smashed: Story of a Drunken Girlhood (Koren Zailckas)
Its Not About the Bike (Lance Armstrong...currently I am in the midst of Tour de France fever)
Autobiography of a Face (Lucy Grealy)

My all time favorite books though are:
Their Eyes Were Watching God (Zora Neale Hurston)
Anna Karenina (Leo Tolstoy...took forever to read, but was totally worth it)

 

[YFR]

Siddhartha

I mentioned Siddhartha when an interviewer asked what books I had read recently. She then gave me a condescending look and said haughtily that she had read it during freshman year in college. I guess she was either trying to look smart (her behavior had the opposite effect) or wanted to gauge my ability to deal with emotionally immature individuals. Needless to say, she didn't give me a very good impression of that school's staff.

 

[CuddlyKumquat]

Oh yes, anyone read Genome by Matt Ridley? Great book I thought

 

[Deleted member 72527]

Blood of Strangers
House of G-d (Samuel Shem)
Intern Blues
On Doctoring (highly recommend)

 

[CTSballer11]

I'm thinking that a forum with a bunch of premeds such as myself will have interesting/ influential books they've read and would like to share these. I wanted to list a few that I've read and hopefully get some feedback as to more, as I will need something to keep my mind off of waiting to hear from med schools this application season! Anyways, in no particular order, here's some of my more recent reads...

The Einstein Factor
For Whom the Bell Tolls
The Sun Also Rises
The Nick Adams Stories
Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming
The Island of the Colorblind
The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

Hopefully you all can give me some great suggestions. Good luck to all those applying this year!

MAXIM

 

[BaylorGuy]

Oh yes, anyone read Genome by Matt Ridley? Great book I thought

I've read Genome and Nature via Nurture....both were good books, but I already heard about a bunch of the stuff he was commenting on in the books...good reads, but didn't really come out super exciting about genetics

 

[Shredder]

Oh yes, anyone read Genome by Matt Ridley? Great book I thought

oh i got really bored of it actually, didnt finish it and ended up selling it in a hurry. DNA by James Watson was a really good overview of past, present, and future of molecular bio, i liked a lot.

Although I enjoyed reading both Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead, I think Ayn Rand is very superficial in her philosophy. She has some good points, but I think she twists many thing. It's ironic that I enjoyed the books yet disagree soo much.

hmm really, i thought atlas was eye opening. it made me look at society and premeds in a new way. it makes me wonder if thats the direction things are heading.

 

[Shredder]

I've read Genome and Nature via Nurture....both were good books, but I already heard about a bunch of the stuff he was commenting on in the books...good reads, but didn't really come out super exciting about genetics

the guys not a scientist, so i was skeptical about everything he had to say. after reading only a little into genome, i figured it was meant for ppl who have only a very superficial understanding of genes and such.

 

[tigress]

oh i got really bored of it actually, didnt finish it and ended up selling it in a hurry. DNA by James Watson was a really good overview of past, present, and future of molecular bio, i liked a lot.

yeah maybe, as long as you go in with the understanding that Watson was a conceited a$$hole

 

[NRankin]

Here's a short list, some of my favorites (books/plays/poems):

Light in August
As I Lay Dying
Frankenstein
The Grapes of Wrath
Of Mice & Men
Ethan Frome
I Never Promised You a Rose Garden (for anyone interested in psychiatry)
The Great Gatsby (& short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald)
Death of a Salesman
Our Town
I Never Saw Another Butterfly
and my all time favorite poem, Thanatopsis by William Cullen Bryant

 

[Shredder]

yeah maybe, as long as you go in with the understanding that Watson was a conceited a$$hole

its ok, he has personality and isnt afraid to say what he thinks, i respect that.

 

[kalenakai]

Angels & Demons (Brown)
The Da Vinci Code (Brown)
Down Under (Bryson)
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down (Fadiman)
Health Care Meltdown (LeBow)
Guns, Germs, and Steel (Diamond)

 

[CuddlyKumquat]

the guys not a scientist, so i was skeptical about everything he had to say. after reading only a little into genome, i figured it was meant for ppl who have only a very superficial understanding of genes and such.

Perhaps you need to read more chapters...since he does get off the subject of "what genes are" and makes lots of interesting points. I found the chapter on Huntington's facinating. 👍

 

[redclover]

Perhaps you need to read more chapters...since he does get off the subject of "what genes are" and makes lots of interesting points. I found the chapter on Huntington's facinating. 👍

hmm... i liked living with our genes and the science of desire for genetics (behavioral genetics, that is)

 

[BaylorGuy]

Maybe this is just me, but i personally don't like any dan brown books. I've read both Angels and Demons and the Da Vinci Code and i really didnt like them. The christian plot and idea behind the books were really good, it got me thinking about a lot of things....but i felt like a 3rd grader when i was reading them. The plot was very thin veiled and felt like he was trying to stretch the book as much as he could.

It felt like a waste of time.

 

[abraxas]

bump.... (just wondering if there is anymore good books out there to read)

 

[tank you]

oldie but a goodie:
anna karenina (tolstoy)
old man and the sea (hemingway)

 

[pagemmapants]

Let's see if I can think of some things other people haven't mentioned yet. . .

The Elegant Universe or The Fabric of the Cosmos - Brian Greene
(Modern developments in theoretical physics - esp. string theory)

The Lost Art of Healing - Dr. Bernard Lown
(Treatise on what's missing from medicine nowadays with plenty of clinical cardiology vignettes)

The Thursday Next series - Jasper Fforde
(Sci-fi-esque fiction about a world in which cloning and time travel are possible and books are as real as you and I. Highly entertaining and full of inside jokes and puns.)

A Brief History of Nearly Everything - Bill Bryson
(Random popular science stuff in beautifully Douglas-Adams-reminiscent prose)

 

[BaylorGuy]

Oh Zarquon....i totally forgot to mention the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series.

 

[SuzieQ3417]

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

"Stiff: The Curious Lives of Cadavers" was great. I also like "Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer."

 

[pagemmapants]

Oh Zarquon....i totally forgot to mention the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series.

You zarking frood, you! 👍