What are some of your favorite books?

[Engrailed]

This may or may not be related to pre-med but one of my favorite books of all time is
When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi, a memoir by a neurosurgeon in his final days grappling with his own mortality from metastatic lung cancer.
It's really moving and on the subject of neurosurgery he says:
“You can’t ever reach perfection, but you can believe in an asymptote toward which you are ceaselessly striving.”

What are some of your favorite books that you also feel like are worth re-reading and leave you in awe of medicine, life or something else?
Do share! Just curious :')

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[chemdoctor]

1984

 

[Engrailed]

I love this question and am excited to see others answers for book recs 🙂

• What Patients Say, What Doctors Hear (Daneille Ofri)
• The Ghost Map (Steven Johnson )- its about cholera
• One in a Billion (Kathleen Gallagher, Mark Johnson)- its about genomic medicine
• Bellevue (David Oshinsky)
• non-med: East of Eden (John Steinbeck) + I'll give you the sun (Jandy Nelson)

Yes, I've heard Bellevue is a great book as well. In general, that hospital is known to get some fascinating cases.

 

[Cheeezcake]

I like Mountains Beyond Mountains, but maybe its just because I'm interested in public health

 

[Kardio]

Emperor of all Maladies is a must read.

I loved learning the history around the attempt to use Folic Acid as chemotherapy (hint: bad idea). The thought process for the first leukemia treatment was humanizes the history of science and medicine so well.

 

[Catalystik]

What are some of your favorite books that you also feel like are worth re-reading and leave you in awe of medicine, life or something else?

Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End, by Atul Gawande

Doctors, who are unfortunately uncomfortable discussing patients' fears about death, fall back on false hopes and interventions that shorten lives instead of improving them. Through research studies and patient anecdotes, the author, who is a practicing surgeon, demonstrates the negative consequences this dynamic has produced. He provides thoughts on how our ultimate goal is not a good death but a good life--all the way to the end, and how we this could be better accomplished.

 

[Engrailed]

Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End, by Atul Gawande

Doctors, who are unfortunately uncomfortable discussing patients' fears about death, fall back on false hopes and interventions that shorten lives instead of improving them. Through research studies and stories about his own patients, the author, who is a practicing surgeon, demonstrates the negative consequences this dynamic has produced. He provides thoughts on how our ultimate goal is not a good death but a good life--all the way to the end, and how we this could be better accomplished.

Agreed! Amazing book. Also loved reading his book Better

 

[animalluver101]

Non-Fiction: I really liked "An American Sickness" by Elisabeth Rosenthal. She talked about the origin of the healthcare industry in the United States and how it's gotten to the trainwreck that it is now. "Dark Money" by Jane Mayer is also a very interesting read.

Fiction: "It's Kind of a Funny Story" by Ned Vizzini, sort of medically relevant because the protagonist is institutionalized for depression and suicidal behavior (for which the author used his own experiences) and most of the story takes place in a hospital. It's a profoundly funny yet introspective book. I read it a couple of years ago and still can't stop thinking about it, so I'd say it really affected me.

 

[Cheeezcake]

Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End, by Atul Gawande

Doctors, who are unfortunately uncomfortable discussing patients' fears about death, fall back on false hopes and interventions that shorten lives instead of improving them. Through research studies and patient anecdotes, the author, who is a practicing surgeon, demonstrates the negative consequences this dynamic has produced. He provides thoughts on how our ultimate goal is not a good death but a good life--all the way to the end, and how we this could be better accomplished.

Agreed, read it as well

 

[Jeremy Bearimy]

Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Explain Everything About the World. For anyone who loves maps and geopolitics, which I found out apparently I do.
Bad Feminist. Because I love me some Roxane Gay.

 

[Phoebus Apollo]

Best book I read in the past year was Pachinko by Min Jin Lee.

Also The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini.

Also All the Light We Cannot See. Dear lord.

Med related and AHMAZING: Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese.

Also: When Katie Met Cassidy.

 

[LizzyM]

Best book I read in the past year was Pachinko by Min Jin Lee.

Yes, Pachinko was very illuminating and intersting. Novel about Koreans living in Japan over many generations.

A Gentleman in Moscow Amor Towles (historical fiction, the protagonist is under house arrest for decades in a Moscow hotel)
There Are No Children Here Alex Kotlowitz (non-fiction, poverty in urban Chicago)
Dear Committee Members Julie Schumacher (satire, because sometimes you need a good laugh at academics)
Bonfire of the Vanities Tom Wolfe (fiction - many intersecting characters of NYC class system in the 1980s)
Suite Francaise Irène Némirovsky (contemporary fiction when it was written but published postumously decades later- how would you behave if your country were invaded?)

 

[Jeremy Bearimy]

Best book I read in the past year was Pachinko by Min Jin Lee.

Also The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini.

Also All the Light We Cannot See. Dear lord.

Med related and AHMAZING: Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese.

Also: When Katie Met Cassidy. Thoroughly enjoyable lesbian rom com.

Seconding the Khaled Hosseini books!! Incredible.

 

[Phoebus Apollo]

A Gentleman in Moscow Amor Towles (historical fiction, the protagonist is under house arrest for decades in a Moscow hotel)

I’ve had this book recommended to me a lot recently. I finally went out a bought a copy, then I left it at work, and then someone stole it. Can you believe that :’(

 

[Jeremy Bearimy]

I’ve had this book recommended to me a lot recently. I finally went out a bought a copy, then I left it at work, and then someone stole it. Can you believe that :’(

We stan a literate thief

 

[907914]

Not related to medicine, but my favorite book series that has made me reflect on my place in life and the connections we all share has been the Hyperion Cantos consisting of Hyperion, The Fall of Hyperion, Endymion, The Rise of Endymion. The first two have you reflect on your life and your place in the universe, the second two place the focus on spirituality and it's place in the universe (although, I think the entire cantos is a metaphor for the atrocities of the catholic church....although I am not certain on that one...)

 

[Dr panda]

"Economics: The User's Guide"
"Nudge"
"The prince" (Machiavelli)

 

[deleted987519]

Factfulness by Hans Rosling

Maybe I cried at the end, maybe I didn't

 

[Cornfed101]

Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End, by Atul Gawande

Doctors, who are unfortunately uncomfortable discussing patients' fears about death, fall back on false hopes and interventions that shorten lives instead of improving them. Through research studies and patient anecdotes, the author, who is a practicing surgeon, demonstrates the negative consequences this dynamic has produced. He provides thoughts on how our ultimate goal is not a good death but a good life--all the way to the end, and how we this could be better accomplished.

Surprisingly, that was my least favorite Atul Gawande book. Not bad, but I just felt like Better and Complications were better

 

[PA_dud3]

I really enjoyed The DO's by Norman Gevitz

 

[EmilKraepelin55]

“The House of God” by Samuel Shem is a very interesting read if you want satire that displays the inhumanity of medical training.
“Complications: A Surgeon’s Notes on an Imperfect Science” by Atul Gawande is also very good to understand generally the imprecise nature of the practice of medicine.

 

[Cornfed101]

Abundance by Peter Diamandis. A good read about how technology can solve shortages with food and other resources. Starts by talking about how aluminum used to be worth more than gold, but then we figured out how to separate it really really cheaply.

When The Air Hits Your Brain by Frank T. Vertosick about neurosurgery residency. Really funny and just an all-around good book.

 

[Goro]

This may or may not be related to pre-med but one of my favorite books of all time is
When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi, a memoir by a neurosurgeon in his final days grappling with his own mortality from metastatic lung cancer.
It's really moving and on the subject of neurosurgery he says:
“You can’t ever reach perfection, but you can believe in an asymptote toward which you are ceaselessly striving.”

What are some of your favorite books that you also feel like are worth re-reading and leave you in awe of medicine, life or something else?
Do share! Just curious :')

Rick Atkinson's Liberation Trilogy. He write military history and turns it into literature.

 

[LizzyM]

Bonfire of the Vanities got me thinking about other books set in the financial world of NYC and the turbulence when a personal mistake or failing begins to snowball. A more contemporary book on that theme that I enjoyed reading last year was Behold the Dreamers by Imbolo Mbue.

 

[ExcitatorySynapse]

Fiction:
A Memory called Empire by Arkady Martine. It was quite possibly the best book I've read in the 2010s.
To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolfe. It was so beautiful.

Nonfiction:
Ignorance by Stuart Firestein was good. I got it as a graduation present from my advisor. 😀

When Breath Becomes Air was super moving. I saw some reviews that decried how much it was about his "lost potential" but I think it's a natural reaction to such a diagnosis after living life based on delayed gratification. He didn't have to deal only with dying, but also a loss of purpose. I can't forget this quote:

“That message is simple: When you come to one of the many moments in life when you must give an account of yourself, provide a ledger of what you have been, and done, and meant to the world, do not, I pray, discount that you filled a dying man’s days with a sated joy, a joy unknown to me in all my prior years, a joy that does not hunger for more and more, but rests, satisfied. In this time, right now, that is an enormous thing.”

😢

 

[Engrailed]

When Breath Becomes Air was super moving. I saw some reviews that decried how much it was about his "lost potential" but I think it's a natural reaction to such a diagnosis after living life based on delayed gratification. He didn't have to deal only with dying, but also a loss of purpose. I can't forget this quote:

😢

Yes, the bolded part gave me chills just now. Totally agreed. To think that everything to worked toward would not be realized as he had anticipated..
My other favorite quote is:
“I would have to learn to live in a different way, seeing death as an imposing itinerant visitor but knowing that even if I'm dying, until I actually die, I am still living.”

 

[LizzyM]

Oh, if you want a really great book similar to Bonfires go for Bombardiers by Po Bronson. Fictionalized1980s bond trader in the trenches of a collapsing company. There are 2 pages in their about selling notes in business school class that explain show exactly how stock/bond markets can work

Behold the Dreamers has as its main character an undocumented immigrant who lives with his wife and kid and who gets a job as the driver for a Manhattan investment banker in 2008. It is a study in race, class and the immigration system as the investment banks went into free fall that summer.

 

[Engrailed]

House of God is one of my all-time favorite books, having been popular back in the late 1970s, I have sent it to countless premeds over the years. And every prospective physician should understood the concept of the Wing of Zock. I still use of the "rules" from the book

-At a cardiac arrest, the first procedure is to take your own pulse.
-The patient is the one with the disease.
-There is no body cavity that cannot be reached with a #14G needle and a good strong arm.

Additionally, it has my favorite line about matzoh balls, a staple of the Jewish Passover Seder, comes from, "House of God" by Samuel Shem

You think I don't have a grandmother?" asked Fats indignantly. "I do, and she's the cutest dearest, most wonderful old lady. Her matzoh balls float?you have to pin them down to eat them up. Under their force the soup levitates. We eat on ladders, scraping the food off the ceiling. I love . . ." The Fat Man had to stop, and dabbed the tears from his eyes, and then went on in a soft voice, "I love her very much."

Behold the Dreamers has as its main character an undocumented immigrant who lives with his wife and kid and who gets a job as the driver for a Manhattan investment banker in 2008. It is a study in race, class and the immigration system as the investment banks went into free fall that summer.

Adding these to my list! 😀

 

[kenykj49]

* Anything by Atul Gawande
* 1984
* A Brief History of Time - Hawkins
* Man’s Search for Meaning - Viktor Frankl
* The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

To name a few I can think of right now.

 

[Beyonce2.0]

Too many to name but some faves include:

On Beauty and White Teeth by Zadie Smith
Medical Apartheid by Harriet Washington (IMO a must-read for all future physicians)
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr (one of the most beautifully written books I've ever read)
God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
Angela Davis's nonfiction works -- Women, Race, and Class et al.
Bunch of other medical ones -- Being Mortal, Emperor of All Maladies, Immortal Life, When Breath Becomes Air