BOOKS WE RECOMMEND THIS WEEK

Chirdeep Malhotra . Updated: 7/20/2021 1:53:00 PM Books and Authors

From Man Booker Prize 2015 longlisted author Anuradha Roy’s novel, to an inspirational story of doctors who changed the health care of an African nation, our book picks this week, curated by Chirdeep Malhotra

CONTEMPORARY FICTION

“All the Lives We Never Lived” by Anuradha Roy

This novel tells the story of Myshkin and his mother, Gayatri. When Gayatri rebels against tradition and follows her artist’s instinct for freedom, she travels from India to Dutch-held Bali in the 1930s, and this rips a knife through Myshkin’s comfortingly familiar universe. Excavating the roots of the world in which he was abandoned, Myshkin comes to understand the connections between the anguish at home and a war-torn universe overtaken by patriotism. War, nationalism, and trees shape lives in unforeseeable ways in this novel about a family and a country struggling with enormous transformations.



NON-FICTION/ BIOGRAPHY

“A Surgeon in the Village: An American Doctor Teaches Brain Surgery in Africa” by Tony Bartelme

This book by journalist Tony Bartelme is the incredible and riveting account of one man’s push to ‘train-forward’—to change our approach to aid and medical training before more lives are needlessly lost. When Dr. Dilan Ellegala arrives in Tanzania to work in Haydom Lutheran Hospital, he is shocked to find that the entire country has just three brain surgeons for its population of forty-two million. Though he starts to do brain surgery in the hospital to remove tumors and treat hydrocephalus, he realizes that there are far too many neurosurgery patients for one person to save, and he would soon be leaving Tanzania. So, he teaches Emmanuel Mayegga, an assistant medical officer to do brain surgery, and also teaches him how to pass on his newfound skills. This story is a testament to the transformational power of teaching and the ever-present potential for change.



NON-FICTION/ MEMOIR

“Into the Gray Zone: A Neuroscientist Explores the Border Between Life and Death” by Adrian Owen

In this startling and thought-provoking book, which will remind readers of works by Oliver Sacks and Atul Gawande, a world-renowned neuroscientist reveals his controversial, groundbreaking work with patients whose brains were previously thought vegetative or non-responsive but turn out—in up to 20 percent of cases—to be vibrantly alive, existing in the ‘Gray Zone.’ This book takes readers to the edge of a dazzling, humbling frontier in our understanding of the brain: the so-called ‘gray zone’ between full consciousness and brain death. This memoir, along with descriptions of scientific medical research and case studies, is about what these fascinating borderlands between life and death have taught us about being human.



COMIC BOOK/ ENVIRONMENT & NATURE

“Green Humour for a Greying Planet” by Rohan Chakravarty

Rohan Chakravarty is the creator of ‘Green Humour’, a series of comic strips about nature. This book curates some of his gag cartoons and comic strips based exclusively on wildlife and nature. This book, with its comprehensive and satirical take on various aspects of the natural world and the threats to its conservation, is a must read. At a time when global warming, wildlife crimes and man-animal conflicts are at their worst, “Green Humour for a Greying Planet” is sure to provide its readers some much needed comic relief.


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