Required reading for future doctors.
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
An enjoyable slice of 20th-century music journalism almost certain to provide something for most readers, no matter one’s...
Music journalist and musician Wald (Talking 'Bout Your Mama: The Dozens, Snaps, and the Deep Roots of Rap, 2014, etc.) focuses on one evening in music history to explain the evolution of contemporary music, especially folk, blues, and rock.
The date of that evening is July 25, 1965, at the Newport Folk Festival, where there was an unbelievably unexpected occurrence: singer/songwriter Bob Dylan, already a living legend in his early 20s, overriding the acoustic music that made him famous in favor of electronically based music, causing reactions ranging from adoration to intense resentment among other musicians, DJs, and record buyers. Dylan has told his own stories (those stories vary because that’s Dylan’s character), and plenty of other music journalists have explored the Dylan phenomenon. What sets Wald's book apart is his laser focus on that one date. The detailed recounting of what did and did not occur on stage and in the audience that night contains contradictory evidence sorted skillfully by the author. He offers a wealth of context; in fact, his account of Dylan's stage appearance does not arrive until 250 pages in. The author cites dozens of sources, well-known and otherwise, but the key storylines, other than Dylan, involve acoustic folk music guru Pete Seeger and the rich history of the Newport festival, a history that had created expectations smashed by Dylan. Furthermore, the appearances on the pages by other musicians—e.g., Joan Baez, the Weaver, Peter, Paul, and Mary, Dave Van Ronk, and Gordon Lightfoot—give the book enough of an expansive feel. Wald's personal knowledge seems encyclopedic, and his endnotes show how he ranged far beyond personal knowledge to produce the book.
An enjoyable slice of 20th-century music journalism almost certain to provide something for most readers, no matter one’s personal feelings about Dylan's music or persona.Pub Date: July 25, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-236668-9
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Dey Street/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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