Suggested books for your summer break...

And the band played on : politics, people, and the aids epidemic / Randy Shilts. 616.9792 SHI
"Shilts wrote his story with such compelling urgency that it wraps the reader up like a whodunit you don't want to put down. One shares his disgust at the doctors who cared more about their own self-promotion than about their patients; the right-wing politicians who treated the victims of a devastating and deadly disease as if they were sinners who had earned the wrath of God; the gay men who didn't care how many people they infected as long as they could enjoy the promiscuous atmosphere of the bath houses, and most incredibly, the for-profit blood banks, which refused to admit their product was carrying a deadly virus and fought against blood testing for three years while the number of people who died from transfusions of infected blood grew by the thousands."

Dying for a chat : the communication breakdown between doctors and patients / Ranjana Srivastava. 610.696 SRI 2013
"Medical oncologist Ranjana Srivatava contends that the best medicine begins with a good chat, to guide the decision making of both doctors and patients."

Emperor of all maladies : a biography of cancer / Siddhartha Mukherjee. 616.994 MUK 2011
"As cancer becomes an ever more universal experience, the need to understand it and its treatment, has never been more compelling.  The author reveals how far we have come in solving one of science's great mysteries and offers a fascinating glimpse of our future progress."

The Hospital by the river : a story of hope / Catherine Hamlin with John Little. 362.1109633 HAM 2001
"When gynecologists Catherine and Reg Hamlin left their home in Australia for Ethiopia, they never dreamed that they would establish what has been heralded as one of the most incredible medical programs in the modern world. But more than forty years later, the couple has operated on more than 20,000 women, most of who suffer from obstetric fistula, a debilitating childbirth injury. In this book, Dr. Catherine Hamlin recalls her life and career in Ethiopia. Her unyielding courage and solid faith will astound Christians worldwide as she talks about the people she has grown to love and the hospital that so many Ethiopian women have come to depend on."

The House of God / Samuel Shem.  610.696 SHE 1985
"Samuel Shem has done what few in American medicine have dared to do-create an unvarnished, unglorified, and amazingly forthright portrait revealing the depth of caring, pain, pathos, and tragedy felt by all who spend their lives treating patients and stand at the crossroads between science and humanity."

The Immortal life of Henrietta Lacks / Rebecca Skloot. 610.9 SKL 2010
"Skoot's book is wonderful - deeply felt, gracefully written, sharply reported. It is a story about science but, much more, about life." Susan Orlean, author of The Orchid Thief.

Man who mistook his wife for a hat / Oliver Sacks. 616.8 SAC 1986
"The Man who mistook his wife for a hat is populated by a cast as strange as that of the most fantastic fiction.  The subject of this strange and wonderful books what happens when things go wrong with parts of the brain most of us don't know exist ... Dr Sacks shows the awesome powers of our mind and just how delicately balanced they have to be." Sunday Times

Mount misery / Samuel Shem. 610.696 SHE 1997
"What The House of God did for doctoring the body, Mount Misery does for doctoring the mind. A practicing psychiatrist, Samuel Shem brings vivid authenticity and extraordinary storytelling gifts to this long-awaited sequel, to create a novel that is laugh-out-loud hilarious, terrifying, and provocative. Filled with biting irony and a wonderful sense of the absurd, Mount Misery tells you everything you'll never learn in therapy. And it's a hell of a lot funnier."

The Spirit catches you and you fall down : a Hmong child, her American doctors, and the collision of two cultures / Anne Fadiman. 362.84 FAD 1997
"Anne Fadiman celebrates the complexity and the individuality of the human interactions that make up the practice of medicine while simultaneously pointing out directions for change and breaking readers' hearts with the tragedies of cultural displacement, medical limitations, and futile good intentions."

The Spirit of the place / Samuel Shem. 610.696 SHE 2012
"A deeply moving and profounding intelligent exploration of the complexities and rewards of family, profession and place. The story of a young physician returning to his small town becomes a tale with universal meaning. This book continues to resonate in the mind and heart long after it is read." Jerome Groopman, M.D., author of How Doctors Think

Tell me I'm here / Anne Deveson. 616.898 DEV 1998
This is the compelling story of a charming young teenager who turns into a tearful tormented young man. It is also the heart-rending story of a mother facing the realisation that her child is going mad.

Tell me the truth : conversations with my patients about life and death / Ranjana Srivastava.  610.696 SRI 2010
"Ranjana Srivastava recounts aspects of her medical training, oncology specialisation, her own health problems and interactions with other patients, doctors and nurses. She provides honest insights into a medical system that is in urgent need of improvement. She describes the lack of compassion, misinformation, false hope and over-treatment that occurs all too often. This is balanced by her analysis of her own failings and lessons for how we can do better. A captivating read, and recommended reading for health professionals and patients alike." M. Hofperson

Tinderbox : how the West sparked the AIDS epidemic and how the world can finally overcome it / Craig Timberg and Daniel Halperin. 616.9792 TIM 2012
"Tinderbox brilliantly outlines the success, failures, and missed opportunities in the battle of HIV prevention over the last 30 years." Elly Katabira

tPA for stroke :  the story of a controversial drug / Justin A. Zivin, John Galbraith Simmons. 616.81061 ZIV 2011
"A fascinating and well-written saga of a dispute that illustrates many of the weaknesses of the U.S. biotechnological and medical enterprises." Robert Bazell.