My Book Meme

Brad over at AIDS Combat Zone tagged me for a meme. Here are the questions and my responses:

1. The total number of books I own.
I could not even tell you. Including textbooks I probably have about 100 in my apartment at the moment. However, I also have several boxes of books in my parents' garage and shelves-full in my parents' den.

2. What was the last book you bought?
I just bought several hundred dollars worth of textbooks, but that's the boring easy answer. The last book I purchased for myself was Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (I just had to walk to my living room and check the name of the book. There are so many of them that I've completely forgotten the order.) More often than not, I just borrow books from one of my friends rather than buying them.

3. What was the last book you read?
A novel called "Middlesex." It was really interesting. A story about the life of a hermaphrodite. I couldn't put it down. :)

4. List five books which have been particularly meaningful for you.

1916, 1921, and 1949. I put them all as one because they're actually a trilogy. They're historical fiction set in the Irish rebellion. I love these books and reread them all the time because they're beautifully written. The author is meticulous in her research of the history behind the Irish rebellion but then just inserts fictional characters into the story. The result is incredibly moving and really makes you feel as if you were there.

Mountains Beyond Mountains. Most public health and medical students have read this book (in fact it was required reading for last year's medical school class at UAB.) It's a biography of Dr. Paul Farmer and talks about his work starting a clinic in Haiti. I love this book because it really made me realize how well medicine and public health could work together. It's been my experience that public health likes to stand on its own two feet, and the same is true for medicine. They don't like to act like they work together. PhD's bad-mouth doctors all the time and I don't understand why. I actually got to meet Dr. Farmer because he was supposed to be the keynote speaker at the conference we had on global AIDS. It was crazy though because when I told my Dean of public health that he was coming, he got kind of huffy. Why? Because Dr. Farmer had created a primary care clinic. Which is Soooo not P.H. (public health.) So, not everyone's as excited as I am about the melding of public health and medicine. Oh well though :)

Moving Mountains: The Race to Treat Global AIDS. I got this book after our conference from the friendly folks at Physicians for Human Rights. It's a great book to read if you're at all interested in HIV/AIDS as a human rights issue. It gives you a lot of facts so that you're armed for serious discussion on the topic. This book also made me realize that Brazil is my hero and that George W. Bush doesn't value human life any more than he values intellect or spelling skills.

Fast Food Nation. I know this isn't as life-changing as the other books, but it really did make make me think a lot more critically about fast-food. I became a vegetarian (sort-of cause I still eat seafood) about a year ago...but I did it mainly to cut fat out of my diet and because I'm scared of catching mad cow disease. (yes, i know it's dumb...hahaha let's all laugh at Samantha now and get it out of our systems.) I should say catching bovine spongiform encephalopathy. It makes it harder to laugh at. Anyway, I didn't give up meat for any moral or animal rights reasons. It was purely self-preservation. But after reading this book, it's hard to even think about eating fast-food or most meats. The way that animals are treated, the way that fast-food corporations treat their employees and franchisees, down to the way that the meat industry treats workers in the slaughterhouses is just wrong. So, it made me really happy with my decision and made a lot of my friends give up McDonald's. :)

The Scarlet Pimpernel. This book is fiction and not really life-changing. But I couldn't think of another serious book and this is probably my favorite book of all time. I read it over and over and over again. It's exciting and romantic and awesome and you should read it. :) Nuff said.

I'm not sure who I know that will do this, so I'll just give it a go. I'm tagging: Johnny over at AMAZO; Daniel at The World as Seen Through Coke Bottle Glasses; and Tom at Weblog. If you guys do it, post it on your blog or leave it in my comments section :) (Also, Carolyn I would totally tag you if you had a blog!!! GET ONE!!!)