Currently reading
The Lonely Sea: Collected Short Stories
Her Benny
Vedere din Parfumerie
Mysticism and Logic (Western Philosophy)
The Analects of Confucious
Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking
Does Anything Eat Wasps?: And 101 Other Unsettling, Witty Answers to Questions You Never Thought You Wanted to Ask
Mutual Aid
City of Djinns: A Year in Delhi
The Brothers Karamazov
Physicians
This rare find was an utter relief after reading endless, labored "humour" and folk tales. I can't say that modern humour or ancient fables respect the reader's intelligence much, but this author accomplished the nearly impossible feat of mixing medical explanation, legal machinations, and political intrigue, without making it tedious or unbelievable. I even suspect that my ability to make medical predictions owes its self-satisfaction to subtle hints provided by the author.That said, it begins to seem by the end of the book that one or more of the protagonist doctors should indeed have seen the medical problem sooner than I did. I have a great deal of sympathy for the self-taught "villian" who spends time in a medical library in order to ferret out and understand malpractice. The villian loses his irresponsible enclosing quotes by the end, but one hopes the author isn't suggesting that patients shouldn't take a degree of control in their own care.
As an aside, the effect of UV light, blue spectrum in this case, which breaks down biliruben in the body, is something I'd learned of recently in a separate book. It would be interesting indeed if markedly lower cancer rates which occur near the equator could be ascribed to the effects of UV light rather than simple vitamin D.
I have some doubts that this genre is effective for more than simple medical analysis, but am curious if modern versions of the same quality, covering something such as cancer might still exist.
