The Yale Journal for Humanities in Medicine

Book Reviews

Without much fanfare, we have introduced a new section, Book Reviews, appropriate enough for a journal like this. We welcome contributions and notices from the readers. If you are impressed by a book, old or new, that has something to do with medicine or medical practice, and think it deserves attention, send us a review. Although we ask you to follow the format of title, author, publisher, and year, your words can be as free as you like.

Years ago, probably in the 1960s,  I suggested that physicians get CME credit for going to pornographic movies because back then we had so little knowledge of the increasingly idiosyncratic sexual habits of the times. That didn’t move the authorities, but movies, books, and many other feats of imagination, can help us physicians understand our patients better and maybe even ourselves. So, if you have seen a movie that you want to review or comment on, send it along too!  We can easily change the title of this new section to simply “Reviews.”

- Howard Spiro (howard.spiro@yale.edu)

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Squandermania by Don Share.
Reviewed by Laurie Rosenblatt, M.D.
May 18, 2008

Wish I Could Be There: Notes from a Phobic Life by Allen Shawn.
Reviewed by Howard Spiro
May 12, 2008

You Don’t Have To Be Famous: How To Write Your Life Story by Steve Zousmer.
Reviewed by Laurie Rosenblatt, M.D.
March 27, 2008

Bridge and Tunnel by John Hennessy.
Reviewed by Laurie Rosenblatt, M.D.
March 16, 2008

Watermark by Jacquelyn Pope.
Reviewed by Laurie Rosenblatt, M.D.
February 11, 2008

Re Verse: Essays on Poetry and Poets by David R. Slavitt.
Reviewed by Laurie Rosenblatt, M.D.
February 4, 2008

Caring for Mother: A Daughter's Long Goodbye by Virginia Stem Owens.
Reviewed by Howard Spiro.
November 8, 2007

Prescribing by Numbers: Drugs and the Definitions of Disease by Jeremy A. Greene.
Reviewed by Howard Spiro.
October 24, 2007

The Snow Leopard by Peter Matthiessen.
Reviewed by P. Ravi Shankar.
June 14, 2007

How People Change: The Short Story as Case History by William Tucker.
Reviewed by Howard Spiro.
May 24, 2007

Final Exam by Pauline Chen.
Reviewed by Howard Spiro.
March 22, 2007

Bill by Bill Rector.
Reviewed by Howard Spiro.
March 21, 2007

What Really Matters – Living a Moral Life Amidst Uncertainty and Danger
by Arthur Kleinman. Reviewed by Jeremy Daniels.
January 18, 2007

Ethics and AIDS in Africa: The Challenge to Our Thinking
edited by A. A. Van Niekerk and L. M. Kopelman. Reviewed by Howard Spiro.
December 6, 2006

Patients Are a Virtue. Clinical Tales in the Art of Medicine
by Brian T. Maurer. Reviewed by Howard Spiro.
December 6, 2006

Secrets from the Black Bag by Susan Woldenberg Butler.
Reviewed by Howard Spiro.
December 6, 2006

Body of Diminishing Motion: Poems and a Memoir
by Joan Seliger Sidney. Reviewed by Pamela S. Wagner.
July 7, 2005