Book Reviews for Miss Anna

(these are just my book reviews - nothing to do with sailing... sorry!)

The Man Who Would Be King. Rudyard Kipling.

As many of you know, this is my favorite movie of all time – Sean Connery and Michael Caine – yes please. I figured it was about time to dive into the book itself. Like the movie it was portrayed from the memories of Peachy and his ordeal, but the imagery, I am sorry to say, wasn’t as vivid as what I wanted it to be. There were multiple times during the movie where I broke down and cried (which, of course, is not uncommon for me), but in the book I had a very hard time really visualizing these amazing scenes. I recommend watching the movie and then. The book fills in the gaps of the movie, but you still have the imagery that the movie gave you. I believe the duality of the two provides a very, very good story.

• “Englishmen are not usually softened by appeals to the memory of their mothers.” (oh English women, what tough broads)
• “The wheel of the world swings through the same phases again and again.” (any history buff would really enjoy this quote)
• “I’ll make a damned fine Nation of you, or I’ll die in the process.” (this is even better if you think about it in a Sean Connery accent)
• “The Son of Man goes forth to war, A golden crown to gain; His blood-red banner streams afar – Who follows in his train?” (this is a beautiful poem and is recited at a very crucial point in the story and I really liked it in the book, but it is even better in the movie where Sean Connery sings this in a long song form.)

Overall, you can see that I am biased toward the movie and really Sean Connery would make me biased for chopped liver. As I said before though you put the movie and book together it is perfect.

The Scarpetta Factor. Patricia Cornwell. http://www.patriciacornwell.com/

This is my favorite series of all time. All the main characters are tortured souls who work in a world of predators and voiceless victims. I have been reading it since I was about 10. Like any series it has had its upsides and downsides, good books and bad books, but it remains true to its science and even after 17 books the characters read as complex individuals who keep recreating themselves. Destructing and restructuring themselves, like we all do. This book is now too far tied into the characters and events of the previous books to be read singularly, even though Ms. Cornwell tries to make palatable to those not invested in the series. Read Post-Mortem which is the first book of the series, if you are not hooked then so be it. But there is no denying that Ms. Cornwell is a gifted writer, scientist, and culinary expert.

• “We owe respect to the living. To the dead we owe only truth.” – Volitaire, 1785 (I am not much of a people person, so working with the dead would be the profession I would prefer. The best thing about Kay Scarpetta is that she is a doctor, an amazing medical professional, who decides to spend her time speaking for those who can’t speak for themselves. Revealing the truth for those who need it the most, those who lost their lives and can’t speak anymore.)
• “Taceant colloquia. Effugiat risus. Hic locus est ubi gaudet succurrere vitae. Let conversations cease. Let laughter depart. This is the place where death delights to help the living.” (I love people who can really actually quote Latin.)
• “The kind of woman who could keep a man fully occupied in bed or kick his ass, like Xena the Warrior Princess in a business suit.” (I want this to be me.)
• “You know what the best security system is? Window shades.”
• IN VINO VERITAS.

Overall, I think I love this series so much because I want to be a character from it. They are complex, strong, and are doing some of the most important work that I can imagine. Alright, actually upon further assessment, I have fallen into the trap of a person who loves a series. I was watching Grey’s Anatomy Season 1 and the other day I watched an episode of the current season (6) and I was wondering to myself why it wasn’t as good. It is the long term series syndrome. As the series builds it gains more lead characters that then must be part of each story, thus making less space for the actual stories themselves – in Grey’s Anatomy there are less patients with completely fleshed out histories and in the Scarpetta series it leads to someone of a disjointed narrative. That is my objective opinion, but in my subjective opinion I still love Ms. Cornwell – even if I love her earlier books more.

Complications: A Surgeon’s Notes on an Imperfect Science. Atul Gawande.

At the beginning of the book I absolutely hated it. It was all about the god complexes sergons have, which I hate for various reasons and as I made very obvious that I truly prefer those who speak for victims. But it was the necessary introduction for the book which later transformed into quite an interesting and enlightening read. The book is broke down into three sections – Fallibility; talking about how you are made into a surgeon, the business side of it, and the commercial aspects; Mystery; explaining where modern medicine fails, how doctors are fallible and how they must address and deal with it; and Uncertainty; where are the boundaries, how do you know when you are practicing good medicine, and how can you be certain. Each section is broken down into different stories and each story is approached in a fully scientific approach (this boy did his research). I learned a lot about various different things – such as the Shouldice Hospital that only does hernia repairs and thus works as a focused factory taking a more business approach (Market Driven Health Care) and literally aims for perfection. I learn massive amounts of information on nausea, gastric bypass surgery (did you know that more than five million adult Americans meet the strict definition of morbid obesity i.e. are over 100 pounds overweight), the stigma associated with autopsy, SIDS, and necrotizing fasciitis. All the stories are interesting, well sourced, and pertinent to the conundrum of what it is to be a surgeon.

• “Sometimes wrong; never in doubt.” – from the Fallibility section which basically explains the full reason of why I disliked a lot of this section, but it was logical and empirically researched and in the end I agreed with his conclusions.
• “If you hear hoofbeats in Texas, think horses not zebras.” – I had actually heard this saying before (on Grey’s Anatomy). I am very happy I am now gaining information for more reliable sources.
• “Lake Wobegon: where the women are strong, the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average” – is this the official slogan of Lake Wobegon? Did anyone know about this?

Overall, I really enjoyed this book. It gave me a good feeling for what my friends in Medical school are going through and how their future job and current schooling affects their life. Surgeons live in a whole different world which I now feel I grasp more fully. On top of that I now have a whole new host of diseases to be a hypochondriac about. I completely recommend the book for anyone who likes science, medicine, or is curious about necrotizing fasciitis.

A Million Little Pieces. James Frey.

Final assessment – this book was bad. (The rest of this will just be me ranting about how bad this book was.) As Mark Twain said in regards to his intense disliking of Jane Austen: “She makes me detest all her people, without reserve. Is that her intention? It is not believable. Then is it her purpose to make the reader detest her people up to the middle of the book and like them in the rest of the chapters? That could be. That would be high art. It would be worth while, too. Some day I will examine the other end of her books and see.” I do not believe it is entirely fair to hurl insults at a book that you have not read fully, so I read all 432 pages and I am now sure that Oprah could have not been more wrong. Does she even read the books she recommends for her book club? The most complex word he uses is a swear word and I understand that it is stream of consciousness, but it was repetitive and crude and boring. To prove my point, I did not mark a page of interest until page 287. This guy must be the brother of Stephanie Meyer because he somehow uses three hundred pages to express the content of one and a half. Meyer’s Twilight: Vampire loves human, human loves vampire, vampire in angst, human doesn’t care; Frey’s Pieces: Man loves drugs, man hates treatment, man makes friends, uses treatment for benefit. Boom. Done. Story told. By the way the only reason that I marked page 287 is because they mention Angola Prison “in the deep bog, hot, humid, and miserable” which a lot of Tulane students go down to to see the inmates put on a rodeo. And the love story even though cute, ends with only a byline – really that’s it – a huge part of the plot and you drop it with one sentence. This book is crap. I can see how many of the sections didn’t seem factual – A Million Little Lies is probably more accurate. It is probably better that most of the book is lies, because then I don’t actually hate the real people portrayed in it but instead I just get to hate James Frey more.

• “Live honorably and with dignity. When you don’t think you can, hold on.” – actually inspiring, unlike the other 100% of the book.

Overall, I recommend avoiding this book.

Dear Anna. I am currently reading better books. I promise.