Children’s Hospital Boston Book Group

This book was reviewed in the New York Times by Abigail Zuger and Mary Roach.  Dr. Montross also wrote a bit more about how she wrote the book on Brown’s website.  You also might want to click on this link to view a C-SPAN program with Dr. Montross.  There is a recent article in Clinical Anatomy which looked at attitudes of medical students toward anatomy dissection as well as an article in Medical Education on the emotional impact.

If you want to read more before our meeting, New York Times reviewed the book  on Dec. 24, 2006, and NPR interviewed Dave Eggers and and Valentino Deng on November 1, 2006.  The Valentino Achak Deng Foundation website offers lots of information including an extensive Reader’s Guide, a Learn About Sudan section,  and an extensive Take Action section.  Wikipedia offers a detailed history of Dave Eggers life.

This month the noon group chose the book A Spot of Bother, by Mark Haddon. Below you will find some relevant links to reviews, interviews, and other sites of interest. We’ll meet this upcoming Thursday, September 3rd, at noon in the audiovisual room. Light refreshments will be provided.

Publisher’s Site, includes author interview and a list of discussion questions.

Full interview with Haddon from New York Magazine.

Librarything.com’s page on A Spot of Bother—gives member ratings, reviews, and other similar books of interest.

Not knowing much about England, I found myself wondering about Peterborough and where it was in England. Apparently it is about 2 hours north of London, and is considered a “cathedral city” with a population of about 160,000. For more information, check here. And for some interesting photographs, check here.

Also, an interesting BBC article about the link between retirement and depression.

Alison will be posting relevant links for her a.m. group soon, and next month we’ll go back to reading the same book. See you next week! -Jessi

Today’s Book Group session generated interest in reading Nikolai Gogol’s The Overcoat.  Feel free to leave your comments!  Wikipedia has a bit of background on Nikolai Gogol.  I also mentioned to the group that I thought that Natalie Friedman’s article “From hybrids to tourists: children of immigrants in Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake” really brought out the central themes of the book and particularly the issues Gogol/Nikhil deals with as sort of an “in-between” generation.

Alison

This is a remarkable story, and I’ll be looking forward to the discussion. On many different levels: human, ecology, and political, there should be much to talk about!  For anyone wanting a bit of extra background, Sheila recommends these two historical sites: Dust Storm Video and the Dust Bowl Oral History Project. If any one wants further background reading: 

The New York Times Book Review focuses on the history and also on some of the smaller quibbles the reviewer has with the story.  The reviewer from the Seattle Times, who has known the author for over 20 years, echoes the sentiments of many readers in wondering how the people who chose to stay could have survived such conditions. There are several author interviews about the book including one on his publisher’s website and another on the Gather website. 

PBS did a video “Surviving the Dust Bowl” which looks very interesting and is available in many local public libraries. NPR also have a 9 minute audio interview with Egan. Finally, there are audio survivor stories which some of you may be interested in listening to.

Our next book is The Constant Gardener by John La Carre.  We will meet on Thursday, April 17,  2008 from 7:30 – 8:30 in the AV Room in the library.

This is the new blog for the Reading Group at Children’s Hospital Boston.  I hope that even folks who are unable to attend the regular meetings will feel free to add their comments about any of the books we read.