Stuff is very much going on in my kitchen nowadays, but without photos, it seems a bit pointless. So here's my subject: I am obsessed with books about medicine. Clearly, I'm not alone, since I see a seemingly endless parade of them come through my hands working at the library. The appeal is not hard to figure out. We all have bodies, we all (might) get sick, and few of us have the brain power or persistence to actually become M.D.s. In addition, we're inundated with pop-cultural doctors on television (E.R., House, etc.). I'd also like to pitch in what I consider the "freakshow" factor. I love reading about weird, rare diseases. Well, who doesn't? I have a total lit-crush on Atul Gawande (New Yorker medical writer). My kids and I routinely watch Nova videos about strange medical cases. Boy in the Bubble? Check. Family That Walks On All Fours? Yes, please!
So recently I read two books in a row that were, in different ways, about medicine and the human body. "Why You Shouldn't Eat Your Bookers and Other Useless Information About Your Body" was something I picked up thinking it might have kid-interest (didn't) and it turned out to be a collection of ho-hum, read-it-before factoids (why men have nipples, etc.). It didn't even take a strong stand on the bookers issue, coming down, it seemed, more on the pro-booger-eating side more than anything else, based on keeping your nasal passages clear and boosting your immune system by ingesting bacteria. So dull, and also misleadingly-titled. Simultaneously, I read "Intern: A Doctor's Intitiation", Sandeep Jauhar's account of his completely miserable year of internship. Dude was depressed. I realized what it is that Atul Gawande does so well, which is to focus on patients and illness rather than his personal struggle, and to take fascinating individual case studies and weave them into a larger narrative about some big medical issue that would never occur to a layperson to ponder. Jauhar occasionally does this, but larded with too much Eeyore for me.
BUT the big realization here is that I read doctor-books for much the same reasons that I gravitate towards yet another micro-niche: books by restaurant waitstaff (like Phoebe Damrosch's "Service Included." Because I am a hard-core people-pleaser, it's like research on how to be the BEST. CUSTOMER. EVER. Whether eating a meal or putting my legs into a set of stirrups (not the horsey kind), I just want to be liked. Is that so wrong?
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