My Recent Book Recommendations

I have been through several books recently that I haven't mentioned yet, so here is list of my recent books that I have listened to with comments. They are listed in descending order of my strength of recommendation.


Highly recommended:
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot - This was an excellent book about the woman who unknowingly provided the immortal HeLa Cells while she was being futily treated for an aggressive cervical cancer.

The Family That Couldn't Sleep: A Medical Mystery, by D. T. Max - Its a terrific presentation of the history of research in the bizarre world of prion diseases including Fatal Familial Insomnia, Mad Cow Disease, Scrapie, Chronic Wasting Disease, CJD, Gerstmann-Straussler-Scheinker Disease and the famous Kuru. The book gives a lot of background historical information and personal history of the researchers and victims involved.


Moderately Recommended:
iWoz, by Steve Wozniak and Gina Smith - A great history of the development of the personal computer from the man himself. It was fun hearing how this history fit in with my vague memories of the coming of personal computing and my family's disastrous purchase of a 56k TRS 80 from Radio Shack.

Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science, by Atul Gawande - There were some good medical lessons which most physicians can find some way to relate to. He also wrote the book Better: A Surgeons Notes on Performance, which I think was a little better. I didn't realize at the time that I was reading them out of order going for the first book second.

Not really recommended, but not a bad way to pass the time:
A Reliable Wife, by Robert Goolrick - A steamy novel about a wealthy man living in Wisconsin who finds a wife by placing an ad in a Chicago newspaper, but she comes to Wisconsin with a plan to kill her soon to be husband. It was a little too rich for my taste but it was okay.

Courage and Consequence, by Karl Rove - The second half was a little better when he started talking things in the past that were a little more familiar to me, but I am not really a politically oriented person so I just didn't love it. I listened to it mostly to satisfy Brad. The book was mainly an elaborate defense of Bush 43. I was persuaded a little but its just not my thing.