Some Worthwhile Summer Reading

[MrMet31]

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I'm surprised no one has mentioned Lewis Thomas. The Lives of a Cell, The Medusa and the Snail, The Fragile Species, and Late Night Thoughts While Listening to Mahler's Ninth Symphony are all fantastic books. Even though they may be a little dated, all of Thomas's themes and opinions are still extremely relevant to an aspiring MD.

 

[monami]

I read the Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy, by Adams, extremely funny.

 

[justmoi]

"Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, some have mediocrity thrust upon them. Major Major was just such a man"

I love that book.....one of the plays I was in was an adaptation of that book....I played Lt. Milo Minderbinder.

Catch 22 is incredible. I think my view of the world changed after reading that. I think i had to rack my brains when i first read it to understand Milo Minderbinder's genius! My favorite part is when Clevinger is brought for judiciary action with Lieutenant Scheisskopf and the rest of those power-tripped army officers. Catch 22 makes you think about a lot of really profound aspects of life in a simple way.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1868619.stm

Okay that commentary done...currently reading the classic Doctors by Eric Segal...can you believe I never did before? apparently almost every premed has! Also trying to get Complications by Atul Gawade, heard really good things about it. If you're looking for an incredible non-medical book, "The Kiterunner" by Khaled Hosseini is a must. I guarantee you it will touch you. And in the same category "A Fine Balance" by Rohinton Mistry (was a Oprah's Book Club book a couple years ago)...I think they both add on to the empathy and broad understanding medicine requires, in an indirect way.
Happy Reading 🙂

 

[PDsquash83]

I would have to agree. My suggestions: Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand or The world is flat by Thomas Friedmen (sp?)

-MJ

Read Harry Potter. There is no reason to be reading all of this crap right now. Just relax and read something that you find fun and entertaining. Everyone is too worked up with reading things like science journals, medical texts, etc. You will have plenty of time to do that during your education, and for the next 40+ yrs.

 

[justmoi]

I would have to agree. My suggestions: Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand or The world is flat by Thomas Friedmen (sp?)

-MJ

As you can see from my signature, Ayn Rand changed my world view significantly too so I second Atlas Shrugged as a must read!!

 

[GWmdwannabe]

For me, the classic summer novel is Bernard Malamud's The Natural.

Currently, I'm reading Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel and I've been working my way (slowly) through Robert Caro's Master of the Senate for the past few summers. Neither really feels like a summer read, though.

Watching Baseball by Jerry Remy and The Numbers Game by Allan Schwarz are good non-fiction summer baseball books.

Other books that are good any time of the year, but are nice, light and "summery": Napoleon's Buttons (Penny Le Couteur & Jay Burreson), Ciao, America! (Beppe Severgnini), A Season on the Brink (John Feinstein) and Pledged: The Secret Life of Sororities (Alexandra Robbins).

 

[silkworm]

If you are interested in some great history writing, particularly Civil War history, you owe it to yourself to read The Civil War: A Narrative by Shelby Foote. It's massive and comprehensive, spanning in time from Fort Sumter to Appomatox, in geography all theaters of conflict, in characters all the major players. And Foote's prose will keep you glued to the pages despite the epic length of the books.

Only downside is that it's going to take a while. But after you close that last volume, I bet you will find it well worth the time.

 

[RxnMan]

Catch 22 is incredible. I think my view of the world changed after reading that. I think i had to rack my brains when i first read it to understand Milo Minderbinder's genius! My favorite part is when Clevinger is brought for judiciary action with Lieutenant Scheisskopf and the rest of those power-tripped army officers. Catch 22 makes you think about a lot of really profound aspects of life in a simple way.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1868619.stm

They couldn't resist not having a Major Major Major Major (Private Major Major Major just didn't sound right,) so they promoted him right away. You could never get in to see him, unless he was out of the office.

I read "Intuition" by Allegra Goodman. I thought it was a great read - I've worked with or known people who are just like the characters in the book - It was funny how she got some things so right!

 

[coco11]

Bel Canto: A Novel by Ann Patchett

👍 excellent read, full of suspense.

 

[Darth Asclepius]

House of God is hilarious but the sequel Mount Misery is terrible.

That's so true. I loved House of God and I was really looking forward to reading Mount Misery, but I had to give up after a couple of chapters. It was awful.

 

[DoctorPardi]

thanks but i think i want something non-med related 😀

Read Kurt Vonnegut!

 

[Empress]

My Own Country by Andrew Verghese is excellent.

 

[Looque]

Related to medicine, I thought Second Opinions by Jerome Groopman was pretty good. It's essentially about the process of medical decision making, but ties in many themes in modern medicine, from managed care to end of life issues.

Unrelated to medicine, obviously Catch-22 by Joseph Heller is gold. If you're looking for a new author, though, I would highly recommend Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer. That novel certainly has the stuff to become a classic in literature, and it actually reads pretty quickly.

 

[floridakppr]

I just picked up Levitt and Dubners' Freakonomics today. What most attracted me to the book was its discussion of Roe v. Wade's impact on crime rates. Apparently, proper data analysis can prove/suggest that the correlation between crime rate and access to legal abortion is stronger than coincidence. I never even considered such a correlation.

 

[IDforMe]

This one has nothing to do with med school, but if you haven't already, read Another Roadside Attraction by Tom Robbins.

There are a ton of great suggestions on this thread! I'm adding a couple of them to my current reading list.

 

[jillibean]

My Own Country by Andrew Verghese is excellent.

Yep! I loved that book too.

That is funny you mentioned that since Verghese is a faculty member at UT-San Antonio now.

 

[Empress]

Yep! I loved that book too.

That is funny you mentioned that since Verghese is a faculty member at UT-San Antonio now.

I really want to know if he is divorced.

 

[jillibean]

I really want to know if he is divorced. :lol

OMG... I was wondering the same thing! I bet he is!

 

[Dr.who]

Hot Lights Cold Steel is an awesome one...

Does anyone else think this sounds like a title for a pornographic movie?

It's done; it's actually done...or is it just beginning?

 

[jillibean]

Does anyone else think this sounds like a title for a pornographic movie?

It's done; it's actually done...or is it just beginning?

 

[Mr. McDuck]

Slaughterhouse 5. Best. Book. Ever.

 

[justmoi]

Read Kurt Vonnegut!

Kurt Vonnegut is incredible. "Cat's Cradle" and "God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian" are wonderful choices, along with Slaughterhouse 5.

 

[DrBorisCA]

LOL. At my VCU interview, all my interviewer wanted to talk about was Harry Potter (I had never read HP, never seen a movie, nothing). Here I thought this old bear of a CT surgeon was going to rip me apart, but all he wanted to talk about was kids books. hahaha

I had the same guy for my interview! Haha...

 

[DoctorPardi]

Kurt Vonnegut is incredible. "Cat's Cradle" and "God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian" are wonderful choices, along with Slaughterhouse 5.

I have only read Cat's Cradle and Slaughterhouse Five, but I just ordered Breakfast of Champions, Catch 22 and Letters to a young doctor from amazon.

Also if anyone is interested in some weird sci-fi read Octavia E. Butler. I am reading her book Parable of the Talents which is the second book in the Parable of the Sower series and it is wonderful. It has a lot to do with the environment and politics, but also a compelling story about a female character becomming a leader of a new society of sorts.

 

[ZacharyMD]

My boss is friends with Laurie Garrett and I've gone out for beers with her... she really made me want to get an MD/MPH.

Wow...do tell more. 🙂

 

[MasonPrehealth]

I read "Intuition" by Allegra Goodman. I thought it was a great read - I've worked with or known people who are just like the characters in the book - It was funny how she got some things so right!

I finished the book a month ago, and I liked how some of the portrayals are quite reminiscent of certain researchers I've known. However, the style of the book seemed a bit deliberately... sketchy (meaning not all the details are really filled in). Not saying that's bad, but some of the reviews for this book have commented on it.

 

[oldbearprofessor]

I finished the book a month ago, and I liked how some of the portrayals are quite reminiscent of certain researchers I've known. However, the style of the book seemed a bit deliberately... sketchy (meaning not all the details are really filled in). Not saying that's bad, but some of the reviews for this book have commented on it.

I read this recently and although it was fun to see myself profiled so closely (?Dr. Glass) , in the end I got bored. The author tried to figure out how research-oriented physicians and basic scientists think and interact and how they run a lab, but ended up missing the boat a good distance and also not really portraying this world as well as I'd have liked. The description of how grants are written and sent out is a good bit off too and makes it sound WAY too easy to get money with a little good baseline data. Still, it was fun to see this world portrayed. I gave my copy of the book to my post-doc as an instructional manual however! 😛

 

[oldbearprofessor]

Yep! I loved that book too.

That is funny you mentioned that since Verghese is a faculty member at UT-San Antonio now.

I recommend the follow-up book to "My Own Country", entitled, "The Tennis Partner" as well. Discusses the problem of addiction among physicians. You really don't have to have read the first to read the follow-up book.

 

[dopaminesurge]

Ooh, The Geneticist that Played Hoops with my DNA by David Ewing Duncan was ridiculously fun.

 

[mshheaddoc]

I also STRONGLY recommend her new book Betrayal of Trust: The Collapse of Global Public Health. I decided to go into medicine and get my MPH after reading this book during my senior year in college. It really opened my eyes as to how my interests could become a career.

So weird, someone recommended this book to me and let me borrow it. First I have to get through "Inventing the AIDS Virus" by Peter H. Duesberg. This is the famous man who denounced HIV/AIDS in the 90's.

Peter Duesberg is professor of molecular and cell biology at the University of California at Berkeley, a pioneer in retrovirus research, the first scientist to isolate a cancer gene, and recipient of the Outstanding Investigator Grant from the National Institutes of Health. His articles challenging the HIV/AIDS hypothesis have appeared in scientific journals including The New England Journal of Medicine, Science, Nature, The Lancet, British Medical Journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and Cancer Research.

Bio here at Berkeley His website that discusses his theories

HIV is a pet project of mine so reading this gives the opposite perspective. If you are interested in the whole infectious disease process its interesting.

Another book I'm trying to get through is "The Great Influenza" which gives the background of the Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918 and some interesting perspectives of early medicine.

 

[LizzyM]

Another book I'm trying to get through is "The Great Influenza" which gives the background of the Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918 and some interesting perspectives of early medicine.

Trying to get through is the key phrase. I found that book very difficult to get into.

For the same subject, I strongly recommend America's Forgotten Pandemic: The Influenza of 1918 by Alfred W. Crosby. I found it much more readable that The Great Epidemic which was just painful with background and detail. I thought I was reading a history of JHU for the first few chapters. 😴 😴 😴

 

[neom3x11]

-

 

[mshheaddoc]

Trying to get through is the key phrase. I found that book very difficult to get into.

For the same subject, I strongly recommend America's Forgotten Pandemic: The Influenza of 1918 by Alfred W. Crosby. I found it much more readable that The Great Epidemic which was just painful with background and detail. I thought I was reading a history of JHU for the first few chapters. 😴 😴 😴

I've been skipping around the chapters. The last chapter on the bird flu is pretty good. Thanks for the suggestion, I might look that up.

 

[Brainsucker]

For a more political history of AIDS, And the Band Played On by Randy Shilts is really gripping.

A non-medically related nonfiction book I just read that was good was Guests of the Ayatollah by Mark Bowden about the Iran hostage crisis that sunk Jimmy Carter.

 

[Dr. Pepper]

Since everyone seems to adore Catch 22, I thought I'd recommend Huxley's Brave New World and Camus' The Stranger .

I'm going to start Catch 22 tomorrow..yay for me.
-Dr. P.

 

[DoctorPardi]

Letters to a Young Doctor by Richard Selzer, MD (his other books of essays & short stories are good, too)

I bought this book and have read roughly half of it and simply love it. The way he writes is great. I have a new found love of short stories and plan to buy some more of his books if they are as you suggest as good as this one.

 

[LizzyM]

I bought this book and have read roughly half of it and simply love it. The way he writes is great. I have a new found love of short stories and plan to buy some more of his books if they are as you suggest as good as this one.

I've been reading Selzer since I was in college.

Letters to a Young Doctor is, as I recall, one of the more serious of his works.

Some of his stories are wickedly funny (I wish I could recall which books contain the story of taking a medical history from an Italian immigrant using the only Italian he knows: lines from operas -- and the very funny essay about pathologists including their penchant for naming and describing things in terms of food.)

Down From Troy includes a lot of autobiographical stories from his youth as a son of a physician in Troy, NY and Raising the Dead is a later autobiographical book about his recovery from a coma and not at all like his short stories.

Rituals of Surgery is dark and a little spooky;

Taking the World In For Repairs has a long segment about staying at a monastery in Venice and making a diagnosis there among the monks.

 

[gujuDoc]

i'm surprised no one has mentioned complications or the intern blues. i also thoroughly enjoyed when the air hits your brain

edit: someone mentioned complications, my bad.

Someone did mention COMPLICATIONS above!


Not really interview discussion kind of material, but I want to read the Ben Carson stories cuz he's inspiring.

 

[sheepunite]

philip caputo's _acts of faith_.
stunning, devastating novel about aid workers in southern sudan.

 

[DoctorPardi]

I've been reading Selzer since I was in college.

Letters to a Young Doctor is, as I recall, one of the more serious of his works.

Some of his stories are wickedly funny (I wish I could recall which books contain the story of taking a medical history from an Italian immigrant using the only Italian he knows: lines from operas -- and the very funny essay about pathologists including their penchant for naming and describing things in terms of food.)

I just read the story "Toenails" and that is a hilarious . He goes to the library every wednesday with toe nail clippers so he can pedicure all of his elderly friends in the library who apparently do not take care of their feet lol.

 

[Mandek]

Awesome thread, bump 👍

 

[justmoi]

Bump!


i think this thread was awesome and for all those looking for suggestions of what to read while you wait for med school, you need to go through these! people have mentioned some great books in here, some of which are must reads. Also, for those applying right now, reading some good novels will help you more than you can imagine for the interview process...in so many of my interviews I discussed books with my interviewer (esp medical authors like sacks), and it was a huge plus.

Better and Complications by Atul Gawande, already mentioned, opened my eyes to so much in healthcare and were probably my best prep for questions related to the field itself. If you can read these books and still want to go down this road, that says something...
***
keeping it going...

the brain that changes itself, norman doidge
this is your brain on music, daniel j. levitin
musicophilia, oliver sacks

in the unrelated-to-medicine category...

white tiger by aravind adiga (won the booker this year)
all the books by author Ha Jin
the opposite of fate by Amy Tan
mary roach's stiff, bonk, spook (highly recommend stiff, especially if you want to laugh your head off!)

 

[LizzyM]

I just read the story "Toenails" and that is a hilarious . He goes to the library every wednesday with toe nail clippers so he can pedicure all of his elderly friends in the library who apparently do not take care of their feet lol.

Selzer is writing about homeless people who hang out in the library. They are his friends. It is a hilarious essay.

Among the non-medical works that I've read since this thread began, I recommend Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky. The medical research book on my "must read" list right now is The Body Hunters: Testing New Drugs on the World's Poorest Patients by Sonia Shah. It is out in paperback and you can buy used copies dirt cheap on Amazon.com.

 

[kell]

I love the book threads! "Bloodletting and Other Miracle Cures" by Vincent Lim won a big Canadian book award for fiction a couple of years ago. It was really good...a bunch of linked short stories. Worth a read. I also read Kingsolver's "Animal Vegetable Miracle" for a bit of a change from the medical. Mentioned it at a recent interview too. 🙂 Kell

 

[MDtoBe1Day]

awesome

 

[Asystole]

I'm currently reading "Death With Interruptions" by José Saramago, an interesting novel about a no-name country where death suddenly ceases to exist but people continue to age and fall ill.

I'm still trying to get used to the style--there are no quotation marks so it can be a little hard to follow unless you're paying attention.

For a non-medical read I liked "The Samurai's Garden" by Gail Tsukiyama (though there is a bit about leprosy and main charcater himself has tuberculosis).

I love this thread, thanks for all the suggestions! 👍

 

[MDman87]

.

 

[Zona Pellucida]

I really want to read 'The God Delusion' by Richard Dawkins but won't have time until the summer. If I am asked at interviews (if I get any, that is) about books I read lately, would this be a bad thing, as the book is religious based and I know it can be a touchy subject to talk about it? The thing is, I love reading about religion as it has always been interesting to me (the whole battle between science and religion).

 

[Red Leader]

I really want to read 'The God Delusion' by Richard Dawkins but won't have time until the summer. If I am asked at interviews (if I get any, that is) about books I read lately, would this be a bad thing, as the book is religious based and I know it can be a touchy subject to talk about it? The thing is, I love reading about religion as it has always been interesting to me (the whole battle between science and religion).

Great book. I also recommend:

- The Selfish Gene - Dawkins
- God is not great - Hitchens

Of course, you can talk about it, but always give a PC answer and frame it in a way that makes it seem like you are accepting of everyone regardless of their beliefs and that you respect those beliefs. Deep down honestly I know you probably don't, let's not kid ourselves here right, but I think keeping the discussion strictly academic will be fine.

 

[justmoi]

I really want to read 'The God Delusion' by Richard Dawkins but won't have time until the summer. If I am asked at interviews (if I get any, that is) about books I read lately, would this be a bad thing, as the book is religious based and I know it can be a touchy subject to talk about it? The thing is, I love reading about religion as it has always been interesting to me (the whole battle between science and religion).

No, I don't think it would be a negative thing necessarily but I'd take care to present it in a way that presents it in light of your interest in the science vs religion debate. Maybe you could relate it to why as a doctor you think this debate is important. The thing about talking about things like religion and politics and policy is that they are not necessarily off the table, because they also indicate your knowledge and interest in these fields, but that in interviews your thoughts should ideally be as uncontroversial as possible. I usually get a sense of what my interviewer is a few minutes in and that gives me an idea of how far I can go. If your interviewer seems like someone who'd be touchy in general, and seems stern/unapproachable, I'd pick a different book. If he's just interested in who you are and what interests you, then I'd go with it.