Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

The Doctor is a Life Saver

A Doctor at Heart: The Story of Groundbreaking Scientist and Teacher Vivien Thomas by Joan Schoettler and Steffi Walthall

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This man grew up in a family that demanded perfection, he would grow up to graduate with honors, he would lose all his money in the stock market crash, and he would go on to be the man who helped find a cure for blue baby syndrome. He was Vivien Thomas. Oddly enough, though they mention the pay discrepancies, there is not a lot about the racism Thomas would have faced.  And though there is the story of how he got his “girls name,” I […]

Not for bedtime reading or the faint of heart or stomach

The Icepick Surgeon Murder Fraud Sabotage Piracy and Other Dastardly Deeds Perpetrated in the Name of Science by Sam Kean

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The Icepick Surgeon is not bedtime reading, unless you want really weird dreams. I enjoy popular science reading, especially when there’s some narrative, and this book is both those things. Basically it’s a review of mostly the past 275 years of medical history and the ugly things people have done and tried to justify in the name of science or helping people in the future. There’s a lot of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century piracy and grave robbing involved, a good bit of slavery and racial history, […]

Why not distract yourself from the workings of the world with the workings of your own insides?

Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal by Mary Roach

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…or more frequently, the misfiring insides of others. Fistulated fellows? Check. Elvis and his mega-colon? Check. Taste-testing pet food, pus, rancid oil, and/or the saliva of others? All yours and more to spare! I like to, for the most-part, enjoy nonfiction via audio books. Frequently, I wander around the house doing whatever needs doing while playing books through a speaker. While I whole-heartedly recommend Gulp, I do NOT recommend subjecting innocent bystanders (sorry, husband!) to the dirty work within. Not everything here is gross. And really, […]

Envision that Circumcision and Feel that Eel

Under the Knife by Arnold van der Laar

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I’ve always wanted to be a doctor. That didn’t pan out, and I’m fine with that, but the interest in all things medical has lingered. Because I was planning to read more non-fiction anyway, I picked up this book on a whim, and although I wasn’t disappointed, it lacks a certain degree of depth. More subcutaneous than intraosseal, if you please. Van de Laar – who is a surgeon himself – takes us through the history of medicine, and specifically surgery, but instead of telling […]



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