Personal Canons

Richard Ratzan

Richard Ratzan, M.D.
E.R. Physician
Avon, Connecticut

 

1.  Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
      This book by a Roman emperor/stoic gave me a common sense and rational way of life that resonated with my belief in order and cosmic justice
2.  Poems of Alfred, Lord Tennyson
       Poems like Ulysses, Crossing the Bar and In Memoriam have become part of my vocabulary
3.  Poems of Catullus
      I read these first semester of college with a wonderful teacher, Jim Notopoulos. the experience was exhilarating and liberating. the combination of bawdiness with high craft and the realization, at 17, that modernity did not start with the Beatles was life-changing
4.  Peter Singer, Practical Ethics
       His argument that animals who make decisions and feel pain have the same rights we do not to be eaten for convenience and pleasure marked, in 1983, the beginning of my vegetarianism. It also demonstrated to me the power of logic and the written word.
5. Marcel Proust, Remembrance of Things Past
     Proust created a world of beauty, civility, hypocrisy, depravity, art, religion, music and literature that many of us have found more intriguing that he world we currently live in, Despite (because of?) his attempt to emulate the latter with the former.
6. James Fenimore Cooper, The Leather Stocking Tales 
      My first adolescent foray into literature and serious reading of a single author
7. Dostevevsky, Crime and Punishment
      My first "unassigned" work of world literature at a time when i could begin to understand it as such.
8. Shakespeare, Henry IV, Parts 1 and 2
9. Calderon de la Barca,  La Vida es Sueno (Life is a dream)

Nicole Wilson

Nicole Wilson
Administrative Assistant
Williamstown, Massachusetts

1.     I Know This Much is True. By Wally Lamb
2.     The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time. by Mark Haddan
3.    A Walk to Remember, by Nicholas Sparks
4.    A Child Called It by Dave Pelzer
5.    Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
6.    The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
7.    We Were the Mulvaneys by Joyce Carol Oates
8.    The House of Sand & Fog by Andre Dubus III
9.    The Dogs of Babel by Carolyn Parkhurst
10.  The Hypochondriacs Guide to Life and Death. By Gene Weingarten



1    This was the best book I have ever read. I don't know that I can explain very well the why, but just the burden's we will bear for someone we love.
2    Very humanizing. The main character, Christopher is just a great kid despite his issues and I have never been as angry on someone else's behalf as I was while reading this book.
3    A great story about a young girl with cancer told from a perspective we never get, that of her peer.
4    A true story. One that anyone who may ever come in contact with an abuse victim needs to read.
5    I am currently in the middle of this book. The history is just fascinating as I'm sure the medical perspective of Cal's story will also be.
6    Wow. Just a great read. I think what grabbed me the most in this story was the fact that we are all guilty of stereotypes. This family ends up way away from the “typical” missionary way of life.
7    Another great read. The story of how one incident can completely tear a family (and half the town) apart.
8    Whoo……have I read some great books and by number 8 I'm trying to think of an original way to say that. This is a great story of how one clerical error can get soooo carried away and how far people will go.
9    A great book I think about mental health and the way people deal with grief. I think the way people deal with grief and the loss of a loved one is the main idea. Sometimes I just wanted to scream at this guy that his wife was nuts and jumped out of a tree, but that's why I'm an administrative assistant not a grief counselor.
10    Hysterical!!! I think you people (pre-meds) should know that there are really people out there like this and I hope you find it as humorous as I did without offending any of them.

Stanley Willis

Stanley Dutton Willis
Retired Educator
Washington. D.C.

1.   The Holy Bible
2.   The Rubiyat of Omar Khayyam (Ftizgerald Tr.)
3.   Georgics by Vergil
4.   King Lear by William Shakespeare
5.   Silas Marner by George Eliot
6.   Pudd'nhead Wilson by Mark Twain
7.   Selected Poetry of Robinson Jeffers
8.   Selected Poetry of Wallace Stevens
9.   How We Die by Sherwin Nuland
10. The Dialogues of Plato

Reasons to Read Stanley's Selections?

1.     None necessary
2.     Sweet and useful poetry and Philosophy
3.     Bucolic speculative verse
4.     Shakespeare's tragic focus on the nature of man
5.     A humane classic
6.     Thoughtful and witty
7.     Poems of power and natural beauty
8.     Beautifully chiseled poems by an insurance agent
9.     A must for anyone in medicine
10.   Socratic method leading to modern psychiatry

Joe Wheelock, Jr.

Joseph A. Wheelock, Jr.
Retired Attorney
Williamstown, Massachusetts

Law
1. The Trial of Jack Ruby by John Kaplan and Jon R. Waltz
Science
2.  The Double Helix by James D. Watson
3.   A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking
4.   One, Two, Three . . . Infinity by George Gamow
Literature
5.   The Foundation Trilogy by Isaac Asimov (consisting of Foundation, Foundation and Empire, and Second Foundation)
6.   The Smiley Quartet by John Le Carré  (consisting of The Spy Who Came In From The Cold;   Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy;   The Honorable Schoolboy;  and  Smiley's People)
7.    The Richard Hannay Quartet by John Buchan (consisting of The Thirty-Nine Steps, Greenmantle, Mr. Standfast, and The Three Hostages)
8.    Watership Down by Richard Adams
9.    The Once and Future King by T. H. White
10.   Dracula by Bram Stoker

Reuven Sobel

Richard "Reuven" Sobel, M.D.
Endocrinologist
Kibbutz Revivim, Israel

1:    Albert Camus: The Plague
2.    Sinclair Lewis: Arrowsmith
3.    Arthur Kleinman: The llness Narratives
4.    Robert Coles: The Call of  Stories
5.    Richard Rorty: Philosophy and Social Hope
6.    William Shakespeare: King Lear
7.    Walker Percy: Love in the Ruins
8.    Culver and Gert- Philosophy in Medicine
9.    The periodical: Literature and Medicine
10.  Abba Eban: My People: The Story of the Jews

Lagniappe:
         William Carlos Williams:  The Doctor Stories and Collected Poems

Silvia Rodes

Silvia Rodes, M.D.
Gynecologic Pathologic (retired)
Havana, Cuba

1.    The Holy Bible
2.    Jose Marti Obras: Complete Works
3.    Antoine de Saint Exupery: The Little Prince
4.    Roberto Fernandez Retamar: Todo Caliban
5.    Eduardo Galeano: Las venas abiertas de America Latina
6.    Ernest hemingway: El viejo y el mar
7.    Ruy Perez Tamayo ( a Mexican Pathologist): todos sus libros
8.    Alejo Carpentier: El siglo de las Luces
9.    Alejo Carpentier: Los pasos perdidos
10.  Isabel Allende: La casa de los espiritus

Shay Bintliff

Sharon "Shay" Bintliff, M.D.
Pediatrician/ ER Doctor
Kamuela, Hawaii

1.  Charles Bryan: A Way of Life: Selected writings by Sir William Osler
2.   Neil Postman and Charles Weingartner: Teaching As a Subversive Activity
3.   Harold Kushner: When Bad Things Happen to Good People
4.   Charles L. Allen: God's Psychiatry
5.   Irwin Stone: The Healing Factor: (Linus Pauling's theory on Vitamin C)
6.   ee.cumings : Collected Poetry
7.   Robert R. Carkhuff : The Art of Helping
8.   Walt Whitman : Leaves of Grass
9.   Dean Ornish: Love and Survival
10. Barbara Kingsolver:  High Tide in Tucson

Khalifa Sharquie

Khalifa Sharquie
Dermatologist
Baghdad, Iraq

1.   The Method of Medicine by At-Tasrif liman
2.   Jose Marti Obras: Complete Works
3.   Antoine de Saint Exupery: The Little Prince
4.   Roberto Fernandez Retamar: Todo Caliban
5.   Eduardo Galeano: Las venas abiertas de America Latina
6.   Ernest Hemingway: The Old Man and the Sea
7.   Ruy Perez Tamayo: ( a Mexican Pathologist): All his works
8.   Alejo Carpentier: El siglo de las Luces
9.   Alejo Carpentier: Los pasos perdidos
10. Isabel Allende: La casa de los espiritus

Richard Rycroft

A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us. Kafka

Dr. Richard Rycroft
Consultant Dermatologist (Retired)
London, England

1.    The Book of Imaginary Beings by Jorge Luis Borges
The encyclopedia as art - the lazy pleasure of useless and out-of-the-way erudition - for random dipping into.

2.  Sincerity and Authenticity by Lionel Trilling
Masterly use of some key works of literature to relaunch your lifetime's reading - deeply humanistic
       
3.    Butterfly Cooing Like a Dove by Miriam Rothschild
The trail of wings followed through history, art, science and literature to provide a delightfully eccentric autobiographical anthology.

4.    Samuel Johnson by Walter Jackson Bate
Moving affirmation of the project of reading and writing as a key component of the examined life for many of us.

5.    Haunts of the Black Masseur by Charles Sprawson
Subtitled 'The Swimmer as Hero,' literature, films, Olympic history and the author's own experience enthrallingly combine to celebrate man's relationship with water.

6.    The Quest for Corvo by A.J.A. Symons
Unique 'experiment in biography' encouraging biographers ever since to reveal more of the writing process - as gripping as a detective novel

7.    Young Men and Fire by Norman Maclean
Posthumously published, a labour of love that teaches us not only about the unholy alliance between science and the vagaries of the human heart, but also about the writing process.  And all about a forest fire in Montana.

8.    The Name of the World by Denis Johnson
A novel about a man, numbed by the death of his wife and child, who, when events force him to act as if he cares, begins to find people who, against all expectations, help him through his private labyrinth.  Wonderfully naturally written - an uneven but underrated writer.

9.    Together in the Dark by Robert Colfelt
A physician's essays that make you think that it might be worthwhile trying to write some yourself - deeply felt.

10.  Twenty Lines a Day by Harry Matthews
Surely we could all have a go at just twenty lines a day!  The ultimate book to fall back on when the writing urge deserts us.

Robert Rockney

Randall Rockney, M.D.
Associate Professor, Pediatrics and Family Medicine
Brown Medical School
Providence, Rhode Island

1.    The Karamazov Brothers by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
     I began to read this novel for the first time a few months before a planned trip to St. Petersburg in Russia in 2000 to attend an opera festival.  The book so absorbed me that I deliberately held off reading the last few pages until I could do so at Dostoyevsky's graveside where I openly wept as I finished the book.  (I label the book The Karamazov Brothers because I read that translating the title as The Brothers Karamazov would be the equivalent of labeling Groucho, Chico, and Harpo The Brothers Marx).

2.    The Tennis Partner by Abraham Verghese:
This is a must read for all physicians, anyone with a friend, and especially for anyone whose life has been touched by addiction.

3.    The Last of the Wine by Mary Renault
There is wisdom and insight in abundance about life and love in this novel set in Athens at the time of Socrates.  (The King Must Die is also fabulous).

4.    A Cambodian Odyssey by Haing Ngor. 
The author won an academy award for his portrayal of Dith Pran, assistant and friend to the Sydney Schamberg character portrayed by Sam Waterston, in the film “The Killing Fields.”  This is Haing's personal story, which tells it like it was which “The Killing Fields,” being a film meant for widespread viewing, could not do. What happened in Cambodia between 1975 and 1979 was an epic tragedy, biblical in its dimensions.  It is captured by this book which, along with knowledge of what happens to Haing Ngor afterward, proved one of the most gut-wrenching reading experiences I've ever known.

5.    Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. 
I have read this book many times and each time I read it I find more to marvel.

6.    Paradise News by David Lodge. 
A delightful moving novel.  A psychiatrist acquaintance, upon reading the book, commented that the author must be a closet therapist.

7.    The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera. 
I remember feeling so alive when I read this book.

8.    All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy. 
A story that tells what it is like to be a man.

9.    Anger by Thich Nhat Hanh. 
Like all his writing, full of gentle wisdom.

10.    The Barbarian Invasions (a film) directed by Denys Arcand. 
A moving, sometimes funny film about dying.