Winter 2011 Good Feasting

Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese

A beautiful, sweeping novel beginning in India and voyaging by sea to Africa to the "Missing" (a mispronunciation of "Mission" by the locals, an apt eponym) hospital.  It is the story of twin boys born to an Indian nun and a British surgeon.  The twins grow and learn in the protected enclave of the mission hospital, until one twin's transgression destroys the boys' bond forever.  Thrust into war torn Africa, the 'good' twin follows his father's ghost and becomes a surgeon, completing residency in the Bronx.  I hesitate to tell you that the incandescent prose was penned by an MD who is currently the program director of the internal medicine residency program at Stanford, in fear that his writing will be discounted. By my well traveled classmates' accounts, Verghese is a nice guy.  By my account, he is an incredible author. 


Stones Into Schools by Greg Mortenson

This is the follow up story to 'Three Cups of Tea,' Mortenson's best-seller about his establishment of the Central Asia Institute which builds schools for girls in rural Pakistan.  In 'Stones Into Schools,' Mortenson chronicles the incredible success of his institute's expanding efforts into war-torn Afghanistan.  His pervasive understanding of the complex cultural, religious, and tribal intricacies governing the Himalayan countries has earned him consulting positions to the US military.  One thing that I loved about this book is that Mortenson's agenda of promoting education for girls is enthusiastically championed by the very rural communities that most Americans view as hotbeds of Islamic radicalism.  The communities, with conservative elders, find creative ways to get the schools built and pin their hopes for a more stable future on their little emissaries of learning.  I found this second book to be more engaging than the first, partly because of the stories of the charismatic fixers in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and partly because of the rocketing success that the Institute has had in building schools in geographically and politically challenging places.


The Wave by Susan Casey

I was delighted to receive this book as a gift from a residency program director while I was on the interview trail.  This director had been involved with the New York literary scene prior to becoming an MD, and I enjoyed talking with someone in the usually stale and relentlessly statistics-based academic world who likes reading as much as I do.  I don't read a lot of non-fiction, but this book is a great blend of history, oceanic mysticism, big-wave surfing, and science.  The premise is that rogue waves are increasing around the globe and are regularly snatching large freighters and drowning all cargo and crew without generating media attention.  Much of the book focuses on the escapades of big-wave surfers who seek out these rogue waves with the help of advanced weather technology, high tech boards, and the convenient lack of their frontal lobes.  Anyone with nautical inclinations or a surfing background will love this book.


The Woman Who Fell From the Sky by Jennifer Steil

A glamorous New Yorker in publishing, Jennifer decides to don an abaya over her formerly Gucci clad body and move to Yemen to teach a journalism class to the staff at the Yemen Observer.  Yemen is one of the poorest countries in the Middle East and has been host to a number of Al Qaeda training sites.  The Observer is ostensibly an independent publication, although Jennifer quickly realizes the pervasiveness of the government's influence into all aspects of Yemeni life, including appropriate article topics for the newspaper.  Even so, Jennifer falls in love with the history, culture and architecture of her adopted new home.  She finds herself viewed as a novel third sex, a Western white woman who is able to sit in with audiences of males, chew Qat (a mildly narcotic plant that Yemeni men spend much of their work day enjoying), and teach journalism to her co-ed staff.  This is a particularly relevant story now, with the winds of change buffeting the Middle East, including Yemen.


 The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

I avoided reading this book for a long time because I hated the title and it's best-seller status.  Thankfully, my younger sister rescued me from my cloud of ignorance and made me read it.  It's fantastic.  Set during WWII in the rural Guernsey islands off the Southern Coast of England, it is a story told in letters between the progressive and charismatic Juliet and her new found friends on the quaint island who don't manage to escape the tentacles of German occupation.  I have not encountered a story told in correspondence form before, but it is done adeptly and movingly.