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Medicine & history stories to thrill the heart and mind
Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect ScienceComplications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science by Atul Gawande
Buy used from: £3.35
How many fatal mistakes does it take to train a surgeon?
Better: A Surgeon's Notes on PerformanceBetter: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance by Atul Gawande
Buy used from: £8.99
Atul Gawande on how to become a 'positive deviant'
Digging Up the Dead: Uncovering the Life and Times of an Extraordinary SurgeonDigging Up the Dead: Uncovering the Life and Times of an Extraordinary Surgeon by Druin Burch
Buy new: £13.00 / Used from: £8.50
Beauty and brutality combine in a personal story of blood, bodysnatching, poetry, radical politics and revolutionary surgery
The House of God (Black Swan)The House of God (Black Swan) by Samuel Shem
Buy new: £5.99 / Used from: £0.89
The blackest (& funniest) 'Catch-22' take on medicine going
Bad Medicine: Doctors Doing Harm Since HippocratesBad Medicine: Doctors Doing Harm Since Hippocrates by David Wootton
Buy new: £9.18 / Used from: £4.75
Exceptionally gripping account of medicine's failure to advance for most of its history
Kill as Few Patients as Possible: And Fifty-six Other Essays on How to Be the World's Best DoctorKill as Few Patients as Possible: And Fifty-six Other Essays on How to Be the World's Best Doctor by Oscar London
Buy used from: £4.45
Occasionally over-sweet but still a good read
How Doctors ThinkHow Doctors Think by Jerome E Groopman
Buy new: £9.16 / Used from: £7.09
Reflections on the troubles doctors and patients have in talking to each other
The Dressing Station: A Surgeon's OdysseyThe Dressing Station: A Surgeon's Odyssey by Jonathan Kaplan
Buy new: £2.92 / Used from: £2.50
One man's story of coping with - and seeking out - dangers and difficulties
A Country Doctor's NotebookA Country Doctor's Notebook by Mikhail Bulgakov
Buy new: £6.99 / Used from: £3.52
The classic autobiographical account from the early twentieth century
A History of Modern BritainA History of Modern Britain by Andrew Marr
Buy new: £16.39 / Used from: £12.00
Makes the later twentieth century zip along
Austerity Britain, 1945-1951Austerity Britain, 1945-1951 by David Kynaston
Buy new: £17.50 / Used from: £12.50
The years we tend to forget, brought lovingly to life
Bomber Boys: Fighting Back 1940-1945Bomber Boys: Fighting Back 1940-1945 by Patrick Bishop
Buy used from: £8.00
The lesser known heroes of the Second World War, their successes and their horros
Fighter Boys: Saving Britain 1940Fighter Boys: Saving Britain 1940 by Patrick Bishop
Buy new: £4.41 / Used from: £0.49
A cleaner almost easier heroism, shorn of the ambivalences of bombing cities
The Blair YearsThe Blair Years by Alastair Campbell
Buy new: £14.95 / Used from: £2.40
See history being created - flawed and on the fly, but excitingly all the same
The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt KidThe Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid by Bill Bryson
Buy new: £4.90 / Used from: £0.01
A less violent history; but personal, funny and touching all the same
Bit of a BlurBit of a Blur by Alex James
Buy new: £11.89 / Used from: £2.49
A complete break from serious current affairs, but a slice of the times and a very enjoyably written one
Letters to a Young Doctor (Harvest Book)Letters to a Young Doctor (Harvest Book) by Richard Selzer
Buy new: £3.44 / Used from: £1.53
The American surgeon Selzer writes with a light touch about deep things
EnglebyEngleby by Sebastian Faulks
Buy new: £12.59 / Used from: £1.67
A truly great historical novelist, here covering the last forty years
Human TracesHuman Traces by Sebastian Faulks
Buy new: £5.54 / Used from: £0.01
A deft and ambitious combination of history and novel writing, with Freud that great unmentioned name hovering behind it all
A Thousand Splendid SunsA Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
Buy new: £11.89 / Used from: £4.69
A great modern tale of life in Afghanistan over the last few decades
Suite FrancaiseSuite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky
Buy new: £4.90 / Used from: £0.09
A pinch of exquisite life - and joy - from France during the war
Agent Zigzag: The True Wartime Story of Eddie Chapman: Lover, Traitor, Hero, SpyAgent Zigzag: The True Wartime Story of Eddie Chapman: Lover, Traitor, Hero, Spy by Ben Macintyre
Buy new: £4.74 / Used from: £0.01
Why read fiction when real life stories can be so much more exciting?