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Nonmedical Reading for Physicians: Some Modest Suggestions
LETTER
Nonmedical Reading for Physicians: Some Modest Suggestions To the Editor: I always read your editorials in The American Journal of Medicine with great interest. I was particularly struck by the most recent one on reading non-medical books.1 In response to your open invitation for readers to respond to your comments, I thought I would make a few modest recommendations of books that I have particularly enjoyed over the last few years. About 5 years ago I started buying my wife books off of The New York Times “Best Books of the Year” list as an annual Christmas present. That got me interested in reading book reviews in the weekly The New York Times book review as well as the occasional ones that appear in the daily newspaper. I picked up a few books from this list and read them. The following are ones that I thought you and your readers might particularly enjoy: Gilead: A Novel by Marilynne Robinson. This was the winner of the 2005 National Book Award. The writing is beautiful and makes you want to stop and savor every sentence. One of the best books I have read in many years. Dear Life: Stories by Alice Munro. This was the most recent collection of short stories by Alice Munro. My wife and I started reading her work about a year ago when a wonderful book review came out about this book in The Funding: None. Conflict of Interest: None. Authorship: The author is solely responsible for writing this manuscript.
0002-9343/$ -see front matter Ó 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
New York Times calling her “The American Chekhov.” You may know that she subsequently won the Nobel Prize for Literature last year. Haunting, beautiful stories. The Prodigal Son by Henri Nouwen. A very thoughtprovoking, short meditation on forgiveness by a priest who left his parish in Canada to work with the poor. It is a meditation on looking at Rembrandt’s painting of “The Prodigal Son” but really is much more about forgiveness. Particularly appropriate for those of us in medicine who often have trouble forgiving ourselves when outcomes aren’t optimal despite our best efforts. The House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus. A culture clash between a proud Iranian colonel and a down-and-out young American woman recovering from drug addiction. It was made into a movie in 2003 starring Jennifer Connelly and Ben Kingsley. In any event, your editorial inspired me to offer these comments. I hope you and your readers are able to track down some of these books and find them interesting. James M. Rippe, MD Rippe Lifestyle Institute Shrewsbury, Mass Rippe Lifestyle Institute Celebration, Fla Department of Biomedical Sciences University of Central Florida Orlando
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.amjmed.2014.03.031
Reference 1. Alpert JS. My recent reading list of nonmedical books. Am J Med. 2014;127(2):101-102.
Nonmedical Reading for Physicians: Some Modest Suggestions To the Editor: I always read your editorials in The American Journal of Medicine with great interest. I was particularly struck by the most recent one on reading non-medical books.1 In response to your open invitation for readers to respond to your comments, I thought I would make a few modest recommendations of books that I have particularly enjoyed over the last few years. About 5 years ago I started buying my wife books off of The New York Times “Best Books of the Year” list as an annual Christmas present. That got me interested in reading book reviews in the weekly The New York Times book review as well as the occasional ones that appear in the daily newspaper. I picked up a few books from this list and read them. The following are ones that I thought you and your readers might particularly enjoy: Gilead: A Novel by Marilynne Robinson. This was the winner of the 2005 National Book Award. The writing is beautiful and makes you want to stop and savor every sentence. One of the best books I have read in many years. Dear Life: Stories by Alice Munro. This was the most recent collection of short stories by Alice Munro. My wife and I started reading her work about a year ago when a wonderful book review came out about this book in The Funding: None. Conflict of Interest: None. Authorship: The author is solely responsible for writing this manuscript.
0002-9343/$ -see front matter Ó 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
New York Times calling her “The American Chekhov.” You may know that she subsequently won the Nobel Prize for Literature last year. Haunting, beautiful stories. The Prodigal Son by Henri Nouwen. A very thoughtprovoking, short meditation on forgiveness by a priest who left his parish in Canada to work with the poor. It is a meditation on looking at Rembrandt’s painting of “The Prodigal Son” but really is much more about forgiveness. Particularly appropriate for those of us in medicine who often have trouble forgiving ourselves when outcomes aren’t optimal despite our best efforts. The House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus. A culture clash between a proud Iranian colonel and a down-and-out young American woman recovering from drug addiction. It was made into a movie in 2003 starring Jennifer Connelly and Ben Kingsley. In any event, your editorial inspired me to offer these comments. I hope you and your readers are able to track down some of these books and find them interesting. James M. Rippe, MD Rippe Lifestyle Institute Shrewsbury, Mass Rippe Lifestyle Institute Celebration, Fla Department of Biomedical Sciences University of Central Florida Orlando
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.amjmed.2014.03.031
Reference 1. Alpert JS. My recent reading list of nonmedical books. Am J Med. 2014;127(2):101-102.