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BMJ No 7123 Volume 315
Books Saturday 20/27 December Christmas 1997 issue
Gimme five - books, that is
Olivia Horner, medical student, United Kingdom
In the Skin of a Lion, Michael Ondaatje
I love this book. It is possibly the best book I have recently
read.
The Quantum Self, Danah Zohar
Medicine revolves around the Newtonian mechanistic paradigm. Here
is an alternative philosophy, also based on science, that allows
a holistic vision of ourselves and the world. This stretched my
mind and made me excited.
Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, Tom Wolfe
It was either this or Trainspotting. Both are about drug culture. This one is now almost historical
as it tells about acid, Ken Kesey, and Haight-Ashbury hippy life.
Medical Nemesis, Ivan Illich
Illich dislikes the professions. He believes they decrease the
control the ordinary man has over his life. In this book he argues
as to how much modern medicine has actually achieved in making
us healthier. Very little, according to him-I'm not sure I totally
agree but he has made me think.
To Kill a Mocking Bird, Harper Lee
I still reread this book, and it still makes me cry.
Back to Gimme 5 index
Richard Horton, editor, Lancet
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Of Human Bondage, W Somerset Maugham, Penguin
A book I read at 30, but one that I should have read at 20. It
would have saved me (and others) a great deal of irritation.
The Sportswriter, Richard Ford, Harvill
The fateful humour of an ordinary-though, in Ford's hands, extraordinary-life.
Long Day's Journey Into Night, Eugene O'Neill
A torn family, frayed by illness. The hinterland, largely unexplored,
surrounding every patient. |
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W Somerset Maugham
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Satan Says, Sharon Olds, University of Pittsburgh Press
Her first collection of poetry. Olds ties language into tight
knots that cut pleasurably into flesh.
The Discourses. Epictetus, Everyman
A friend to get you through long nights on call.
Back to Gimme 5 index
Zviad Kirtava, rheumatologist, Georgia
Flowers for Algernon, Daniel Kizzy
This is short story worthy of some tremendous novels for its outstanding
feeling of compassion. Reminds me of the wonderful movie Awakenings.
The Catcher in the Rye, J D Salinger
It is too difficult for me to describe this masterpiece. One should
just read it.
The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Hopefully, most medical students have already read this book,
like Beauty and the Beast, which could also be mentioned.
The Notes of the Young Doctor, Mikhail Bulgakov
Terrible notes from Russia after the revolution by a genius writer,
who like many others has been a doctor himself.
The First Garment, Guram Dochanashvili
My favourite book-has everything a human
being needs to learn.
Back to Gimme 5 index
Carl Kjellstrand, physician, United States
Heart of Darkness, J Conrad
The best written story in English. The subject, the call to violence
and cruelty, can be seen in small children and is that which we
can cover up for a while. A good thing to know about.
The Plague, A Camus
The counterweight to the above, an immensely optimistic book,
which says that we can control these traits by human heroism.
And the hero is a physician who recognises the plague, a cover
for all evil (I believe that it was Nazism that inspired Camus
to write this book). He fights against it with his little group,
who all die, apart from the physician. "Nonetheless he knew that
the tale he had to tell could not be one of final victory. It
could only be a record of what had to be done, and what assuredly
would have to be done again in the never ending fight against
terror and its relentless onslaughts, by all, who despite their
personal afflictions that enable them to be saints, still refuse
to bow down to pestilences and strive their utmost to be healers."
The Brothers Karamazov, F Dostoyevsky
The best description of three great human characters and how different
people deal with the great catastrophes that life tosses every
one of us from time to time.
Death in the Family, James Agee
The best description of the numbing catastrophic impact of sudden,
unexpected death on a young family, complete with the problems
of communication that exist in all families. In this case it is
a disagreement about religion between the wife and the husband,
who is killed in an accident.
My Confession, L Tolstoy
The tale of how a young, rich, spoiled, very intelligent person
works through the superficialities of his artificial environment
to find a moral rock bottom. Every physician should do that to
be able to deal with patients a bit beyond being a slick body
engineer.
Back to Gimme 5 index
Irvine Loudon, medical historian, United Kingdom
Guns, Germs and Steel. A Short History of Everybody for the last
13,000 years, Jared Diamond, Jonathan Cape, 1997
A marvellous, broad, and highly original account, of the impact
of agriculture, disease, writing, technology, and war on the development
of humanity; beautifully written and gripping. Just published.
A Thousand Acres, Jane Smiley, Flamingo
Hearing that this was the story of King Lear set in modern rural
mid-west USA, I was doubtful at first, but I believe it to be
the most moving and memorable novel of the past 20 and more years.
I have read it three times with increasing admiration and enjoyment.
Notes from a Small Island, Bill Bryson, Black Swan (paperback)
By far the funniest, as well as one of the most sharply observed,
accounts of Britain today.
Solitude, Anthony Storr, HarperCollins
I wish this beautifully wise and readable book had been available
when I started medicine. I am sure it would have made me a more
understanding and tolerant doctor, as well as reassuring me that
it is OK to be a bit of an unsociable recluse.
Weir of Hermiston, Robert Louis Stevenson
The most beautifully written and most memorable novel I have ever
read-even though it was unfinished.
Back to Gimme 5 index
Nabil Nassar, physician, Lebanon
The Ascent of Man, J Bronowski
Deals with humanity through the concept of understanding the philosophy
of nature through "understanding human nature and of the human
condition within nature." Doctors and the diseases they diagnose
and treat are within nature.
Manwatching, Desmond Morris
A fascinating book on how human physical gestures transmit messages.
Some of the ideas presented and discussed never crossed many minds,
including mine. Physicians "watch" patients all the time.
Man and His Symbols, Carl Jung
As depicted in the title, the book is about symbols of man, emphasising
the "language" of dreams with which the unconscious in man communicates.
It helps medical students understand the many facets of man's
behaviour, which in essence reflects actions preconceived in his
brain while dreams are "actions suppressed."
The Muqaddimah of Ibn Khaldun, translated by F Rosenthal
Although originally written more than six centuries ago, this
book remains a classic behavioural sociology reference about men's
physical environment and his social behaviour within this environment,
and how both influenced him and the civilisations he developed.
Back to Gimme 5 index
Roger Robinson, associate editor, BMJ
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Dibs in Search of Self, Virginia Axline
A moving account of psychotherapy for an emotionally disturbed
child.
Middlemarch, George Eliot
By any standards one of the greatest novels, but nominated for
its portrait of a doctor to admire and identify with.
The Citadel, A J Cronin
A compelling story which shows why Britain needed the National
Health Service (and still does). |
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A J Cronin
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Hall of Mirrors, John Rowan Wilson
A gripping medicopoliticolegal thriller, and a warning that the
student is not entering a profession led exclusively by saints
or intellectual geniuses.
Le Grand Meaulnes (The Lost Domain), Alain Fournier
Nothing medical here, but nominated for the haunting beauty with
which it evokes a sense of loss.
Back to Gimme 5 index
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