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BMJ No 7123 Volume 315
Books Saturday 20/27 December Christmas 1997 issue
Gimme five - books, that is
Kate Adams, medical student, United Kingdom
Jonathan Livingstone Seagull, Richard Bach
I have been lost in flight with Jonathan Seagull on numerous occasions.
It is a truly inspiring book that reminds me that life is about
living and not just following the flock. Since reading this book
I have not been able to look at a seagull in the same light.
Some Lives, David Widgery
This book helped me decide to train in east London. Written by
a general practitioner with 20 years of experience, it gives an
interesting account of the history, politics, and solidarity of
the east end.
Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
A beautifully written, powerfully descriptive, and deeply moving
story about the first world war. The personal touches made me
feel as though I was also there in the trenches.
Intimate Death, Marie De Hennezel
Written by a French psychologist who supported FranÍcois Mitterand
through his terminal illness. She is deeply spiritual and recounts
powerful experiences that she has had with people close to death.
This book is not depressing. In fact, to quote Mitterand, the
book is a "lesson in living."
The Benn Diaries (new single volume edition), Tony Benn
A fascinating insight into political life and the wheelings and
dealings that have gone on behind the scenes over the past 50
years. It made government feel more accessible, personal, and
vulnerable.
Back to Gimme 5 index
Jeremy Anderson, psychiatrist, Australia
Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media, Edward S Herman and Noam Chomsky, Vintage, 1994
A contemporary polemic. Required reading for anyone who opens
a newspaper, or perhaps a medical journal. Available on video
for those political couch potatoes unable to turn a page.
The Cornish Trilogy, Robertson Davies, Penguin. Comprises The Rebel Angels (1982), What's Bred in the Bone (1985), and The Lyre of Orpheus (1988)
Subtle wit and pratfalls, academe and Rabelais, mysticism, and
piercing common sense.
Vineland, Thomas Pynchon, Minerva, 1990
The froth and bubble of the youth culture of '80s California artfully
described. In a way this combines my first two selections. Read
this book and ponder if paranoia is the only sane response to
the modern world.
Sweet Soul Music: Rhythm and Blues and the Southern Dream of Freedom, Peter Guralnick, Penguin, 1986
Music fans of all persuasions have books that illuminate their
obsessions; this is one of mine. Through the voices of the original
protagonists, Guralnick provides a cultural history that encompasses
much of the American South of the '60s. Ray Charles, Solomon Burke,
Dan Penn, Aretha Franklin-all these and many more speak to us
here. An excellent companion compact disc provides the soundtrack
(Sweet Soul Music: Voices from the Shadows, Sire/Warner/Blue Horizon 9-26731-2).
Bad City Blues, Tim Willocks, Jonathan Cape, 1991
Like Chekhov, Willocks started to write after graduating in medicine,
but the similarities end there. This book is a taut, sexy, and
gratuitously violent thriller included here because it introduces
the baddest psychiatrist in literature. Not for the faint hearted.
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James Barrett, psychiatrist, United Kingdom
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Catch 22, Joseph Heller
The best book I've ever read. Rather profound philosophy applicable
to a seemingly insane world, wrapped up in a surreal story.
Che Guevara's Motorcycle Diaries
Bush medicine, bed hopping, and a challenging and currently unpopular
brand of socialism by an icon of our times who happened to be
an immunologist too.
A Liar's Autobiography, Graham Chapman
How one man chose whether to be a consultant in ear, nose, and
throat surgery or in something completely different. A choice
that faces many doctors and medical students.
The Prophet, Khalil Gibran
A beautiful extended poem, seemingly from another time but written
this century. Poetry for those who don't like poetry.
Back to Gimme 5 index |
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Che Guevara |
Solly Benatar, professor of medicine, South Africa
Obedience to Authority, Stanley Milgram, Harper
Torch
Provides chilling insights into moral dangers that result
from the human propensity to obey authority.
Animal Liberation, Peter Singer, Avon
Argues compellingly for a re-evaluation of our relationship with
animals.
Causing Death and Saving Lives, Jonathan Glover, Penguin
A scholarly examination of moral issues pertaining to matters
of life and death.
The Passion of the Western Mind, Richard Tarnas, Ballantine
An eloquent and easily readable account of the ideas that have
shaped our world view.
A History of Civilizations, Fernand Braudel, Allen Lane
An integrated systems approach to world civilisations, written
by one of the greatest historians of the 20th century for final
year secondary students.
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Chris Bulstrode, professor of orthopaedics, United Kingdom
Touching the Void, Joe Simpson, Pan, 1988
The greatest climbing book of all time. When I finally put it
down at 5 am, having read it non-stop, I was physically exhausted.
Not fiction, just rank escapism.
Catch 22, Joseph Heller, Vintage
There are many great books on institutional madness, a subject
which fascinates me. This is the most accessible and the funniest.
The rest, like the biography of Albert Speer, The Best and the Brightest, are important but no fun.
Microserfs, Douglas Coupland
The world of computer geeks and nerds exposed at last. Like lifting
a stone and exposing a whole lot of endearing invertebrates to
the sun for the first time.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Ken Kesey, Picador, 1976
I suppose it is the old "Who exactly is mad anyway?"
The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck, Penguin, 1963
Dispossessed people are a big problem for doctors. This book encapsulates
the problems for me.
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Simon Chapman, public health academic, Australia
Rookmaaker LC. Captive rhinoceroses in Europe from 1500 until
1810. Bijdragen tot de Dierkunde 1973;43:39-63.
Not a book, but a masterpiece. Between 1500 and 1810, 10 rhinos
were successfully brought to Europe for the edification of various
courts. One was "fond of the smell of tobacco and now and then
the ones who took care of it blew smoke into his nostrils and
mouth." Another "was fond of wine, of which it sometimes drank
three or four bottles in a few hours." We all know people like
that.
How to Help Your Husband Get Ahead in His Business and Social
Life, Dorothy Carnegie, World's Work, 1954
Ladies, read six ways to raise your EQ (enthusiasm quotient, silly!);
how to make mountains out of his virtues; and how to stop being
a "buttinsky." Husbands, be warned though, signs of what was to
come are here-a whole chapter on "having outside interests of
your own." Tsk, tsk.
Le Petomane, Jean Nohain and F Caradec, Sphere, 1971
A classmate of mine, Foul Bowel Bob Howell, would have had his
whole identity changed by this book. The story of the world's
most celebrated musical anus belonging to Joseph Pujol, "a very
modern fin de siÍ4cle fellow" who could do violin, bass, and trombone
recitals.
Youth and Sex. Dangers and Safeguards for Girls and Boys, Mary Scharlieb and F Arthur Sibley, TC and EC Jack, 1914
A wise man once said that he who goeth to bed with stiff problem,
waketh with solution in hand. Dr Clement Dukes, medical officer
at Rugby School and "the greatest English authority on school
hygiene," claims here that about |mK90 to 95 per cent of all boys
at boarding schools" are well acquainted with Mrs Palm and her
five daughters. Lots of early EBM here on the causes of blindness
and torpor.
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Linda H Clever, editor,Western Journal of Medicine
The Plague, Albert Camus, Modern Library/Random House, 1948
This metaphor for the Holocaust applies as well to AIDS. The Nazis
were the plague; the rats were the collaborators; the physicians
were the Resistance. For once, doctors come off looking good.
Collected Poems, Emily Dickinson, Avenel Books (original, 1890, 1891, 1896; special,
1982)
Emily Dickinson captured the breeze, uncovered the soul, inflamed
the passions-all with a few words ingeniously placed.
The Bible, New Standard Translation
Well, why not? Great literature; great courage, hope, renewal,
all the other themes that are important to me in one handy volume.
Self-Renewal: The Individual and the Innovative Society, John
W Gardner, Norton, 1981
Still in print, this antidote to decay
and pessimism shines a beacon for wonderers and wanderers, for
those who question their direction in life and the meaning in
life. Gardner, a Marine in the second world war, a cabinet officer,
and the founder of the citizens' lobby, Common Cause, teaches
by telling lively stories that impart pure wisdom.
Lest Innocent Blood Be Shed, Philip Hallie, Harper Torch, 1985
This is the story of Le Chambon, a Huguenot village that saved
Jews in the heart of Vichy France. It is not great literature
but great ethics ... that can change the way we live.
Back to Gimme 5 index
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