The top three:
Read the entire list.Lewis R. Thomas’s The Lives of a Cell -- [B]ecause it was beautiful and vivid and human and intensely curious about science and the world. And also because it put before me the notion that a person, even a physician, could find a place in public life writing and talking about science and human beings in their many dimensions. Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms -- One of the great novels of all time; my model of succinct, clear, and also morally inspired writing. And also, unexpectedly, some of the best observed writing on medicine there has been. Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea -- It is the model of dramatic tension drawn out, description, and parable.
Learn more about Gawande's new book, Better.
--Marshal Zeringue
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