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MATCH DAY

Name: MATCH DAY
Author: Brian Eule
ISBN: 978-0-312-37784-7

ONE DAY AND ONE DRAMATIC YEAR IN THE LIVES OF THREE NEW DOCTORS

by Brian Eule ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 3, 2009

Required reading for future doctors.

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Highly informative account of three young doctors beginning their hospital residencies.

Some 15,000 fourth-year U.S. medical students, nearly half women, are assigned residencies each spring in a national ritual called “Match Day.” Eule’s debut weaves the experiences of three fledgling female doctors who in 2006 were matched with teaching hospitals—based on their preferences and other complex data—for their first year of extended training as residents. The author traces the many fears, uncertainties and challenges they experienced while working 24-hour shifts and 80-hour workweeks. Beyond checking on patients and writing orders or prescriptions, his subjects struggled to find their way in hospitals, where they were often mistaken for nurses, and to balance careers and romantic relationships in a profession that strongly discourages marriage and pregnancy. “I will never hire another pair of ovaries to work in this department again,” said one medical director. Eule interweaves three compelling narratives. One spotlights his girlfriend Stephanie, the vivacious child of Chinese immigrants, who interned in surgery at Stanford. Another follows fashion-conscious extrovert Michele LaFonda, a radiology intern at Danbury Hospital in Connecticut, who tried unsuccessfully to maintain a relationship with Iowa grocer’s son Ted, a medical intern at Columbia. A third concerns Rakhi Barkowski, an intern in internal medicine at UCLA, whose husband Scott was embarking on a career in economics. Eule is a gifted storyteller with a knack for anecdotes; one of the book’s most striking moments depicts his proposal to Stephanie on the stage of an empty San Francisco opera house. He brings us deep into the lives of these young people and celebrates the real-world rigor of residence training, though he notes that “this model pushed everything else in a person’s life to the wayside.”

Required reading for future doctors.

Pub Date: March 3, 2009

ISBN: 978-0-312-37784-7

Page Count: 288

Publisher: St. Martin's

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2009

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

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NUTCRACKER

by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996

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This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)

Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996

ISBN: 0-15-100227-4

Page Count: 136

Publisher: Harcourt

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER AND THE MOUSE KING
by E.T.A. Hoffmann ; adapted by Natalie Andrewson ; illustrated by Natalie Andrewson

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER
by E.T.A. Hoffmann & illustrated by Julie Paschkis

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TO THE ONE I LOVE THE BEST

EPISODES FROM THE LIFE OF LADY MENDL (ELSIE DE WOLFE)

by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955

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An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.