Looking For a Good Book

Everything you wanted to know about the science of the human heart in a series of essays about medical pioneers.

This was a really interesting idea that just grew a little dull and tedious for this lay reader.  I am fascinated by man’s quest for knowledge and the lengths some will go to further their own education, and so a book chronicling the development of heart science/medicine was very intriguing to me. And in truth, much of what was written was quite interesting, it was simply bogged down in the writing, which jumps around and is disorganized and a bit heavy-handed.

I read this on a kindle and the book is rife with end-notes.  If you are familiar with the kindle, you know what a pain it can be to read end-notes electronically (just as end notes in a physical book can be annoying to constantly be flipping to the back to read the author’s commentary on his own writing, or worse yet, to simply read “ibid.”  Few of the end notes were worth the time and effort, and about half way through I started glancing at the notes collectively by the chapter to see if anything looked like it was really worth the time.

The book started off quite well and I was excited and looking forward to reading this, but after two or three chapters I couldn’t remember why this was once interesting to me.  I wanted to like this (I wouldn’t have requested it if I wasn’t interested) and it started off well, but I lost interest (or the author failed to hold my interest).  Some of the details about how animals have been used in experiments didn’t bother me.  I’m not faint at heart and I understand the medicine has often explored the workings of animals before progressing to humans.  However, I know plenty of people for whom this might be a bother.

I wish I could recommend this book, but I think that it would only appeal to those who are already in the medical field, and even then I’m not certain it would be worth the read.

Looking for a good book?  The Man Who Touched His Own Heart is a tedious non-fiction read exploring the progress of man’s knowledge of how the heart works and how to fix it.

I received an electronic copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

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The Man Who Touched His Own Heart: True Tales of Science, Surgery, and Mystery

author: Rob Dunn

publisher: Little, Brown and Company

ISBN: 0316225797

hardcover, 384 pages