Sakura of DOOM

*looks at date*

Er. Better late than never?

Once again, I read fewer books this year. On the other hand, only two books less than last year, so I think that is not bad, considering that I started grad school and all! And I managed to blog every book I read, with the exception of rereads.

The biggest change for me in 2008 was starting the 50books_poc challenge; namely, to read 50 books by POC in a year. I had originally done it from IBARW to IBARW (August 2007 to August 2008), but it's nice to know that I met it for the calendar year of 2008 as well. If anyone's interested about why, I wrote up why I count and how the challenge affected me during IBARW 3. Next year, my goal is to increase the percentage of books by POC so that it's over 50% of all the books I read, total. I'm still trying to make it enough of a habit that I won't have to count, and it's rather embarrassing to see the huge jump in numbers once I started making an effort. The gap between 13 books by POC versus 64 is enormous and indicative of my own aversive racism; it didn't actually take that much effort to find those 51 additional books (although a large part of that is thanks to my local libraries, and aversive racism plays its own role in book selection in libraries as well).

It is nice to see that I do not have to worry much about the percentage of women I'm reading.

As always, feel free to ask about anything here.

• ( Sherman Alexie, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian )



• ( M.T. Anderson, The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation: The Pox Party )



• ( Atul Gawande, Complications and Better )



• ( Justina Chen Headley, Girl Overboard )



• ( Maggie Helwig, Where She Was Standing )



• ( Angela Johnson, The First Part Last )



• ( David Mas Masumoto, Epitaph for a Peach )



• ( Andrea Smith, Conquest )



• ( Catherynne M. Valente, The Orphan's Tales )



• ( Elizabeth E. Wein, The Mark of Solomon )

( Also recommended )

Total read: 129 (6 rereads)
51 by women of color, 64 by POC, 104 by women

( Complete list of books read in 2008 )

As noted in the subtitle, this is a book about bettering performance in the medical sphere, though Gawande's findings can be applied to more general situations as well. He covers hand-washing compliance in hospitals, medical professionals and legal executions, the standardization of child-birth, the increasing rates of success for medical procedures in the battlefield, and many other topics.

Some feel like they're more related to the topic than others: the chapter on legal executions and doctors was fascinating, but more tangentially related to betterment. Still, Gawande is clear, accessible, uncondescending, and very thoughtful, so I didn't particularly care if he went off-topic or not. He does note his biases, particularly in the chapters on what surgeons and doctors earn and on malpractice cases, but I liked that he looks at the other side, particularly how he interviews the surgeon-turned-malpractice-lawyer.

I'm not sure how interesting or new these essays will be for people already in the medical profession. My sense of it was that Gawande's take on topics is thoughtful enough to be engaging to anyone, but given that I know nearly nothing about the medical profession, all these points of view could already be well-represented.

I enjoyed reading this a great deal, partly because I like reading about work in different industries and the specific complications and dilemmas that arise in them, and partly because Gawande is very good at presenting things in an engaging manner. While many of his insights about betterment aren't ground-breaking -- getting people to make suggestions makes for better compliance than top-down rules -- it's still a good reminder on what I want and expect from myself, particularly in terms of activism and getting my actions to match my beliefs. Several of his suggestions for betterment in the final chapter seemed particularly applicable to anti-racism and feminism, particularly "count something" and "change."

I left this book feeling like I could do better, in the sense of having something to strive toward and hope for, not in the sense of crushing lack of self esteem. Really neat book, recommended for people who like Malcolm Gladwell, and I am checking out Complications as soon as I can.

Links:
- sanguinity's review
- minnow1212's review