Highly animated—and rich in encounters both sad and hilarious.
An orthopedic surgeon’s down-to-earth, fast-paced, and frequently funny memoir of his residency.
Collins admits he felt like “the dullest scalpel in the drawer” at the start of his time at the Mayo Clinic, he admits. In short, punchy chapters he chronicles his four-year journey from terrified junior resident to skilled chief resident. Although Collins notes that surgeons are not generally known for their introspective qualities (and his memoir reflects that), he nonetheless freely describes the emotions he felt making his first incision into a living body, witnessing his first patient death, and conducting his first solo operation. As he grew in competence, he grew in confidence. Surgeons fix things, and for a time Collins rejoiced in the ability to do that increasingly well. He thrived on the gratitude and admiration of patients whose bones he had set or whose joints he had replaced. But he came to realize that it wasn’t in his power to fix everything, a point made in the stories of a young woman whose cancer could not be halted despite extremely disfiguring surgery and of a boy whose horribly mangled leg Collins failed to save. In other pieces, the surgeon touches on the ethics of the residency system, in which the patient’s right to the best care conflicts with the resident’s need to learn. While much of the action takes place at the Mayo Clinic, Collins also shares his personal life. With his wife producing a baby each year, he had to take a second job as an emergency-room doctor to feed his growing family. One old car after another died, each replaced by an equally aging wreck. The subzero Minnesota winters vied with perennial lack of sleep as worst physical indignity. Throughout, Collins depicts with a born storyteller’s skill the camaraderie among young residents as they journey to medical professionalism. We see them together in and out of the hospital, joshing, competing, and supporting each other.
Highly animated—and rich in encounters both sad and hilarious.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-312-33778-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2004
French culinary king Franey (A Chef's Tale, p. 189, etc.) teams up with Flaste once again in this companion book to Franey's new 26-week public television series. Amassed here are a selection of classic specialities from each of 20 major gastronomic areas of the country, with information on cheeses, desserts, and drinks and how these ingredients have influenced the development of cuisine in places from Normandy (famous for cream, Calvados, and apple cider) to the Loire Valley (known for freshwater fish like sandre and trout) to Gascony (a major foie gras producer). The authors offer excellent recipes for simple, peasant fare; popular bistro foods; and sophisticated restaurant dishes. Unfortunately, French regional often means lots of meat and cream, and while this makes for great taste in everything tested, from the rich scallops sauteed with leeks and saffron to the hearty sauerkraut with pork, no one can indulge in such heavy meals often. Although there are many lighter recipes in this good cookbook (which will, in all likelihood, become a food bible for Francophiles), it could have been even better with the inclusion of variations for reducing fat. Franey presents easy-to-follow instructions, and even for the most spectacular dishes the preparation is manageable, though often requiring several steps (one of which may be a sauce). Delicious—but just because Franey asserts that the French have avoided current low-fat standards without suffering in ``health or looks'' doesn't mean we all can. (50 photos, 15 in full color, 20 maps, not seen) (First printing 50,000; Book-of-the-Month Club's Homestyle Book Club alternate selection)
Pub Date: Aug. 30, 1994
ISBN: 0-679-43157-8
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1994
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A didactic account of the author's first year of Talmud study, originally published in Hungarian in 1927 and posthumously translated. Born Joseph Klein in 1882 in the small Hungarian village of Pata, Patai (who renamed himself after his hometown) was raised in the strictly Orthodox Jewish tradition. He wore sidelocks and fringed garments, observed all the rituals, and studied the Talmud in cheder (Hebrew school) before he ever learned to read Hungarian. This study captivated him. In his chronology of a year in and out of cheder, Patai intersperses idealized memories of learning with starry-eyed recollections of Jewish life in Hungary at the end of the 19th century. He remembers the thrill of first being allowed to look into the large volume of the Talmud and then finding out what lay within: the debates, the stories, the glory, the riches of his Jewish ancestors. He glosses over the poverty and anti-Semitism that his family endured—for Patai, everything else was obscured by his passion for the magnificent old text. He tries to impress the reader with the wonder of the Talmud by describing his own awe, supplying numerous illustrations from the text itself, and telling stories of the sages with examples of their erudition, wisdom, and piety. All of this, however eloquently expressed, only gives the reader the briefest glimpse of what Patai feels for the Talmud. The effect is not so much emotional as instructional: Seen in the context provided by the author's son, Raphael Patai (The Jewish Alchemists, p. 533, etc.), in his biographical introduction to the volume, this memoir is but one of many efforts to reacquaint a nation with what Patai perceived to be its dying culture. In this, the poet, author, and editor typifies the Eastern European Haskalah, or Jewish Renaissance, which sought to revive the golden age of Judaism by recovering its heroic past. A highly romanticized paean to the Jewish tradition of learning.
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-8276-0517-X
Page Count: 140
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1994
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