Thursday, March 22, 2007

Atul Gawande's 10 favorite books

In 2002 Atul Gawande told Barnes & Noble about his ten favorite books.

The top three:
  • 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.
  • Read the entire list.

    Learn more about Gawande's new book, Better.

    --Marshal Zeringue