Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin

I love fiction. I always have a fiction book that I am reading and one in the wings and a few on hold at the library. I might be addicted to fiction. However, if there was one book that I could recommend and encourage everyone to read, it would be Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace…One School at a Time. It is the most inspiring book I have read in many years and it is non-fiction.

Three Cups of Tea is the amazing story of Greg Mortenson. He is a climbing fiend. I live in the Pacific Northwest; I’ve met a few of those. He attempts to climb K2 in memory of his sister, Christa, and does not make it. It is what happens after that failed journey that really shows his true heart and character. He mistakenly ends up in the village of Korphe, a small town not on his map of Pakistan. It is here, where he is nursed back to health, that he makes a life-altering decision.
“Standing next to Haji Ali, on the ledge overlooking the valley, with such a crystalline view of the mountains he’d come halfway around the world to measure himself against, climbing K2 to place a necklace on its summit suddenly felt beside the point. There was a much more meaningful gesture he could make in honor of his sister’s memory. He put his hands on Haji Ali’s shoulders, as the old man had done to him dozens of times since they’d shared their first cup of tea. ‘I’m going to build you a school,’ he said, not yet realizing that with those words, the path of his life had just detoured down another trail, a route far more serpentine and arduous than the wrong turns he’d taken since retreating from K2.” (pg 33)

And, then, Greg returns to the US. This, really, is where the story starts. He has no money. He is living in his car in the flatlands of Berkeley. He has no connections. And, yet, within 10 years he builds fifty-five schools in Pakistan. It is really an incredible story and a testament to the effect that one dedicated individual can have on hundreds.

If you are interested in learning more or helping out, the Central Asia Institute that Greg founded is continuing this work.

the girl who stopped swimming by Joshilyn Jackson

This is the first book I have read by Joshilyn Jackson. Her novels are set in the south and this one revolves around family. The Hawthorne family may seem normal from the outside: They live in a suburban housing development, the dad, David, works as a computer programmer, the mom, Laurel, makes quilts, and they have young teenage daughter named Shelby. When a tragedy occurs at their house, the past, Laurel’s, her sister’s, and her mother’s, becomes important.

The book made me think about some interesting questions having to do with families. Are there situations or families where a sibling knows you better than your husband? If you have a good relationship with a family member because of something they did in the past, what happens when you find out that isn’t true? If your daughter is in trouble, do you confront her and question her or let her go? Laurel faces all these issues as they try to find out what happened to the girl who stopped swimming in their very own backyard.

The book is a fast, enthralling read, and a great book to take on vacation with you. I think I will have to go back and read her previous book gods in Alabama.

better: A Surgeon’s Notes on Performance by Atul Gawande

I, personally, have had a few issues with those in the medical profession. For example, about 6 years ago I asked my pediatrician if the vaccines she had contained Thimerosal, a preservative that used to be commonly added to vaccines. This was exactly what the CDC suggested I ask. She said they did not, but began lecturing me; stridently insisting that if I was concerned with mercury I should be more concerned about the fish I ate. She also told me that Thimerosal did not contain mercury. At that point, my husband and I – both of us Ph. D. chemists – looked at each other, made a few under-the-breath comments, and walking out of her office decided to never see her again. Thimerosal contains mercury; her comment was like insisting that chocolate chip cookies contain no chocolate. Why would a doctor make up something like that? If she doesn’t know any chemistry, why pretend she does? I don’t expect doctors to know everything, but I do expect them to be honest about what they don’t know.

That was only my most egregious incident. I have had other minor incidents with doctors that just simply did not feel right. This may be why I appreciate the writings of Atul Gawande so much. He does not sugarcoat what goes on in medicine. He also obviously cares for his patients and cares about the state of medicine as a whole. He gives an insider view into why certain decision or practices are so prevalent. For example, in better he spends a chapter looking at the increase in cesarean section rates in this country. I was surprised to learn that a forceps delivery, in the hands of an experienced doctor at a large hospital, actually has “fabulous results”. However, it turns out that it is much easier to teach someone how to do a c-section and that is why it has become the standard of care in difficult deliveries. Gawande expresses his concerns eloquently, “Some hospitals across the country are doing Cesarean sections in more than half of child deliveries. It is not merely nostalgic to find this disturbing. We are losing our connection to yet another natural process of life. And we are seeing the waning of the art of childbirth, too. The skill to bring a child in trouble safely through a vaginal delivery, however inconsistent and unevenly distributed, has been nurtured over the centuries. In the obstetrical mainstream, it won’t be long before it is lost.” (pg 198)

Gawande also examines the care of children and adults with cystic fibrosis. The data collected on the treatment of children with cystic fibrosis has been compiled by the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation and for many years they reported back to the responding hospitals on how well they were doing in comparison with other hospitals. A hospital, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, wanted to do better. They asked to know what the top hospitals were so they could learn from them. The Foundation did not want to give this data out because then hospitals may be less likely to report their data, if they knew it was not going to be anonymous. It is a fascinating look into the system. The data was finally released and it is now available online. Now, when will this ever happen for other specialties?

I found the other chapters in better interesting as well, but the afterword where Gawande gives suggestions for becoming a positive deviant is worthwhile reading for anyone in any profession. A positive deviant is someone who gets much better results than anyone else. For example, in 1964 the average age of death for someone with CF was twenty-one years at the best center, which was seven times the age of patients at other centers. A patient could live 7× longer if they happened to be at that one center and it was mainly due to the efforts of one doctor. Gawande suggestions for being the positive deviant, with my quick summations, are as follows:
1. Ask an unscripted question – find out something new about a patient or colleague.
2. Don’t complain – it’s just discouraging.
3. Count something – you may find out something new.
4. Write something – you may find out something new or just feel better.
5. Change – don’t get stuck doing the same thing if it is not working.
I think his main point is to be mindful and pay attention. “Regardless of what one ultimately does in medicine—or outside medicine, for that matter—one should be a scientist in the world.” (pg 254)

Books Set in the Science World

There was an interesting article on the Scientific American website entitled, “We Need More Novels about Real Scientists”. I have long thought this as well. One of the books mentioned in the article, Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis, is often cited by scientists now nearing their retirement age as a motivating influence in their life. I did not find it that interesting. However, Search by C. P. Snow, which was written about the same time, is an engrossing read; maybe because it focuses on the ambition of a young scientist and the decisions he has to make that dramatically impact his and other’s careers.

A recent novel that has received much acclamation and is also mentioned in this article is Intuition by Allegra Goodman. This novel follows the story of an academic research group. The details that the author adds shows that she has spent some time talking with people who actually work in a lab. The novel revolves around some research that appears to show one thing, but, in fact, may simply be sloppy note-keeping. It throws this group into turmoil and Goodman does a good job of showing the different points-of-view from the group leaders to the graduate students. A book that is not mentioned is Cantor’s Dilemma by Carl Djerassi. Djerassi is a very well-known scientist; he is a retired professor from Stanford who first synthesized the steroid oral contraceptive. In Cantor’s Dilemma he writes about trust and ambition in a science setting, or what he calls science-in-fiction. This is one of those books I would like to re-read, but I have unfortunately forgotten who I lent it to a few years ago.

Since few of these novels with scientists as lead characters, and not villains, exist, biographies or memoirs can fill the gap. My graduate school advisor, himself a Nobel prize-winner, mentioned Marie Curie by Eve Curie, her daughter, as a book that inspired him. I also found the story of Rosalind Franklin & DNA by Anne Sayre an enlightening read, especially when compared to the story told by her Nobel prize-winning colleague, James Watson. Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science by Atul Gawande is an insightful look into what it means to be a practicing doctor these days. I am looking forward to reading his next book, Better.

Know of any other good books out there with realistic pictures of scientists?