<p>My BF and I have decided to do books as Christmas presents this year, and I’m sort of at a loss of what to get him. He doesn’t read very often (not a lot of time) so it’s not very cut and dried.</p>
<p>He’s read all the Bill Bryson books and LOVED them and I’d love to get him something relating to medicine/healthcare since he’s applying to med schools this semester. Any sort of humorous take on the medical field (or actually, anything a 20y/o boy might like) that any parents could recommend?</p>
<p>My son has loved Richard Russo’s “Straight Man” and the Mark Salzman autobiographical books, particularly “Lying in Place” (his “Iron & Silk” is esteemed.) These are good reads, quite humorous at times, and they relate to the academic communities, but they are not medical situations. Good luck!</p>
<p>The funniest book that takes place in a science lab that I can think of is Connie Willis’s *Bellwether. * She generally writes sci fi, though this book basically takes place in the very near future. The narrator is working on a project to discover why fads begin, when she realizes there’s a prime example right in the workplace…</p>
<p>I also enjoy neurologist Oliver Sacks’ books. TThe Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat: And Other Clinical Tales and An Anthropologist On Mars: Seven Paradoxical Tales are two classic collections of his short essays.</p>
<p>Perri Klass is a pediatrician who writes movingly and convincingly about her medical school experiences at Harvard and her subsequent medical practice. Her recent book - “Treatments Kind and Fair: Letters to a Young Doctor” - received very good reviews. Although her books aren’t particularly humorous, this one may be worth checking out.</p>
<p>A book that lots of med schools assign is Anne Fadiman’s The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down about the struggles of a Hmong family in Merced County, CA and the (Western) medical establishment to treat with an epileptic girl.
Oliver Sacks writes very entertainingly about medical issues.</p>
<p>Others have already recommended Oliver Sacks, who is fantastic if your BF is interested in neuroscience at all, so I’ll throw in Complications and Better by Atul Gawande. He’s a surgeon and an excellent writer who covers a lot of the nitty-gritty issues of how medicine is practiced and doctors are trained, which might be a nice change from the more abstract science he gets in school :)</p>
<p>If he liked Bill Bryson’s book about traveling in Australia, he might enjoy Tony Horowitz’s very funny take on the same theme - One for the Road.</p>
<p>There are lots of medical thrillers if he is in to that. Robin Cook and Michael Palmer come to mind. Not a book but the DVDs of the different seasons of House might be fun!</p>
<p>I also thought of Gawande. Another book published just this year is “Black Flies” by Shannon Burke (who is male, in case it matters). It is on the NYT list of Notable Books of 2008, and I enjoyed it. Here’s a tag line that is pretty apt:</p>
<p>“Shannon Burke’s searing and morally resonant new novel follows a rookie paramedic through his ghastly duties.”</p>
<p>I just read Gawande’s books and liked them, and I also liked Oliver Sachs latest book. I also liked How Doctors think - not funny but insightful into the types of thinking doctors have.</p>
<p>Another recommendation for the “House of God”. My D asked for it last year after taking an anatomy course whose professor spoke about the book. She found it pretty entertaining.</p>
<p>I haven’t read it, but understand it’s a funny-in-not-a-nice way story about training to be a doctor.</p>