Book Talk!
Books for your bucket list.
Books discussed:
Father by Sharon Olds
Mistborn Series by Brandon Sanderson
Mom’s Cancer by Brian Fries
The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett
The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss
The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman
Books mentioned:
The Gold Cell by Sharon Olds
The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang
Lin: Welcome to our intermittent book talk. We've got Ellen, Justin, and myself, Bryant, here talking about what we're reading this week. Based on Ellen's fantastic suggestion, I picked up a poetry collection—I have not picked up a poetry collection in years—called Father. In fact, while I was waiting for the Medical Humanities meeting at UCSF, invited by Chloe, I was there early, and I read it in an hour. It was a very good read. I have to say that was a great suggestion. Ellen, can you tell us how you heard about it, and why you liked it?
Zhang: Sharon Olds, the poet, really has made her mark in the literary world as a renowned female poet. I heard about her through a lot of my poetry mentors, but I recently stumbled upon a New York Times article that talked about her writing in an interview with her. She spoke about how her work is quite accessible, and she writes about topics that might be seen as more womanly or feminine and that was a challenge for her to break into the literary world. I started reading The Gold Cell before The Father, which I recommended to Bryant. She talks about her relationship with her father, especially as he is undergoing cancer and treatment, and she talks a little bit about the evolving nature of their relationship. I really enjoyed it, and especially as a future physician, I think it really touches upon components of medicine we might not think about on a daily basis.
Lin: I loved it, from the first poem I was really drawn in. There were great perspectives about how death impacts the family. It was focused on the father as he's dying, and then it also follows after he's dead.
I thought it was very interesting, this one particular poem. All these poems are narratively linked, with the father's death. After her father died she became very protective of the body–very much like “Hey, don't, you know this is my father's body,” as opposed to the view of someone passing. I saw it as the spirit is gone—all that’s left is the body. In her case, she was protecting and still wanted to imbue her father's body. This held a lot of meaning: even though her father was cremated, she writes about the urn and her feelings that are encased.
I haven't read poetry in a collection for a while, but I highly recommend it. I think for physicians, it gives a great patient perspective. It’s all the things that we've heard and seen before but in a different form. In a sense, it reminds me of a graphic novel. Have you heard of Brian Fees and his book called Mom's Cancer? It's a graphic novel.
There's something I didn't know until I started doing a lot of humanities. I taught a medical advance course called Graphic Medicine where there are graphic novels. I was at a bookstore in LA and just happened to see it. The author also wrote a graphic novel called The Last Mechanical Monsters, which was kinda based on a superman story, where the evil mastermind created these robots, and Superman had to capture the evil mastermind and defeat the robots. Graphic Medicines was a follow-on where the mastermind is now old and leaves prison while still wanting to destroy the world and everything humorous. He actually ends up making personal connections with people doing good things. Anyway, that's definitely a great book. I highly recommend it.
The author drew a graphic novel called Mom's Cancer, it's about his experience with his mom being diagnosed with cancer. I have to say it is the best book I've ever seen on a patient and family's experience going through a cancer diagnosis. It really hits on everything that you hear from patients and their families. The novel won the Eisner award so I highly recommend it to anyone in medicine. Or if someone in your family has gone through a cancer diagnosis
Lofti: I can't wait to check these out.
Lin: So as a new dad, Justin, are you actually able to read anything new?
Lotfi: I've been really loving the library apps. Vulpa allows me to read graphic novels through the library. I also have a public library app and check out books there.
When I was on paternity leave I was reading a fantasy book, it was the fourth of a series by Brian Sanderson, who's a really well-known fantasy author. He actually had a Kickstarter project and got funded for tens of millions of dollars, which is crazy.
You might like the Mistborn saga but it’s really long, I think I got to page 600 out of 1000.
Are you guys familiar with The Daily Stoic? It’s one of the New York Times bestsellers and is a very nice introduction to some of the stoicism philosophies in which I've been dabbling. The author Ryan Holiday compiled quotes and excerpts from a personal journal. It’s called Meditations and is a compilation of reflections. Reading it has inspired me to continue journaling and keep pearls in mind to help me through daily life. I think a lot of people, and specifically patients, who would honestly benefit from more philosophy. We just don't have time to consider philosophy. What are our thoughts? What are our emotions, and how to grapple with them?
Lin: I totally agree. A lot of times, when patients ask me questions, I will respond, “Well, that's kind of a philosophical question, right?” It's not like a “yes” or “no” question or like that's it.
I didn't think I was the only one who likes fantasy and science fiction. I'm glad to hear that both of you read Science Fiction and Fantasy, and I'm a big fan of Sanderson. He's like a machine; he writes books like he's got a schedule. Sanderson teaches a very popular class at Brigham Young on fantasy writing.
Lotfi: I think the lectures are online on Youtube. When he launched Kickstarter I checked out his channel and saw him give a few talks. You know how to write characters and good stories etc. He's incredibly prolific and very creative. He took a very novel approach to fantasy, which I think people found refreshing. It's like dabbling in science and physics there.
Lin: So, Ellen, what are you reading? Were you able to make it through The Name of the Wind?
Zhang: I am still currently reading it. I am halfway there, and I can see what you mean by its similarity to The Poppy Wars. It takes me a little bit of momentum because I think I have to read a couple of pages every time before I'm completely immersed.
Lin: I was just saying, you gotta sit down and have a block of time to read.
Zhang: The other book that I read last week was The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett. It was quite a quick read, but it has a very interesting commentary on race, gender, identity, and how you appear outwardly to society. The basic premise is that there's a pair of twin girls, and they're both of mixed race, specifically white and Black. They're very white-passing but one of them chooses to live like a Black person, and one lives life as a white person, and this is like the mid to late 1990s, so race plays a very crucial role in how people treat you. It goes through the lives of these twins and their daughters and touches upon these intergenerational relationships and conflicts as well. I really enjoyed it.
Lin: Yeah, that looks like a great book. I'm going to pick it up. I have this huge stack of books. I've not read it very easily.
I'm gonna follow all your recommendations because I was. I did not think that I'd be able to get through a volume of poetry in an hour, and it was great.
Zhang: For The Father, I love how you talked about the poems being tied together. I think as a poet it’s so important for other writers to do. But it's hard when you're in the process of trying to do that with your own poems. She's definitely a big role model for me in that vein.
Lin: Awesome. Well, I hope you enjoyed our discussion today. Hopefully, you enjoy this book talk that we have, and if you have any suggestions, let us know.