Max Pemberton: Trust me, I'm a (junior) doctor

Max Pemberton: Trust me, I'm a (junior) doctor    - 294 oldal

szerintem: ★★★☆☆

The bestselling real life story of a hapless junior doctor, based on his columns written anonymously for the Telegraph.

IF YOU'RE GOING to be ill, it's best to avoid the first Wednesday in August. This is the day when junior doctors graduate to their first placements and begin to face having to put into practice what they have spent the last six years learning.

Starting on the evening before he begins work as a doctor, this book charts Max Pemberton's touching and funny journey through his first year in the NHS. Progressing from youthful idealism to frank bewilderment, Max realises how little his job is about 'saving people' and how much of his time is taken up by signing forms and trying to figure out all the important things no one has explained yet -- for example, the crucial question of how to tell whether someone is dead or not.

Along the way, Max and his fellow fledgling doctors grapple with the complicated questions of life, love, mental health and how on earth to make time to do your laundry.

All Creatures Great and Small meets Bridget Jones's Diary, this is a humorous and accessible peek into a world which you'd normally need a medical degree to witness.

If you enjoy Trust Me, I'm a (Junior) Doctor, don't miss the follow-up titles Where Does It Hurt? and The Doctor Will See You Now.

"In theory it's supposed to be a team effort, with the registrar, the SHO and the junior doctor who have been on call the previous night supporting each other. In reality the consultant asks a question, looking at the registrar, who then turns and looks at the SHO, who then turns and looks at the junior doctor, who then looks at their shoes." 

"Sometimes, the real pathos is in seeing people live their day-to-day lives, rather than the dramatic things like seeing people die." 

"Too late to save her from the cancer and too late to say goodbye. The two saddest words in the English language: Too Late."

"There is a fantastic amount of hypocrisy around drugs. While it's perfectly acceptable for the middle classes, come the weekend, to snort and smoke whatever they like, prostitution, gun crime, murder, extortion, burglary or armed robbery are considered unacceptable. But this is what you're supporting when you take illegal drugs."

Stephen King: If it bleeds

 Stephen King: If it bleeds    -  366 oldal 

szerintem: ★★☆☆☆

News people have a saying: 'If it bleeds, it leads'. And a bomb at Albert Macready Middle School is guaranteed to lead any bulletin.

Holly Gibney of the Finders Keepers detective agency is working on the case of a missing dog - and on her own need to be more assertive - when she sees the footage on TV. But when she tunes in again, to the late-night report, she realizes there is something not quite right about the correspondent who was first on the scene. So begins 'If It Bleeds' , a stand-alone sequel to The Outsider featuring the incomparable Holly on her first solo case.

Dancing alongside are three more long stories - 'Mr Harrigan's Phone', 'The Life of Chuck' and 'Rat' .

The novella is a form King has returned to over and over again in the course of his amazing career, and many have been made into iconic films, If It Bleeds is a uniquely satisfying collection of longer short fiction by an incomparably gifted writer.

" 'Youth is a wonderful thing,' said Mr Harrigan. 'What a shame it's wasted on children.' "

"In the twenty-first century, I think our phones are how we are wadded to the world. If so, it's probably a bad marriage." 

" 'I want to believe in God, Unc, and I sort of do, but I don't understand why it has to be this way. Why god would let it be this way. It's a mystery? You're the hotshot philosophy guy and that's the best you can do?' " 

"He supposed Franzen had had a point about the time before writing a novel actually began. It was a good time, because everything you saw and heard was possible grist for the mill. Everything was malleable. The mind could build a city, remodel it, then raze it, all while you were taking a shower or shaving or having a piss. Once you began, however, that changed. Every sentence you wrote, every word you wrote, limited your options a little more." 

"If it was a lie it was a white one, just a device to short-circuit an argument before it could be born. Husbands and wifes did it all the time. It was the way marriages survived."

Stephen King: Elevation

 Stephen King: Elevation     -  132 oldal.

szerintem: ★★☆☆☆

Although Scott Carey doesn’t look any different, he’s been steadily losing weight. There are a couple of other odd things, too. He weighs the same in his clothes and out of them, no matter how heavy they are. Scott doesn’t want to be poked and prodded. He mostly just wants someone else to know, and he trusts Doctor Bob Ellis.

In the small town of Castle Rock, the setting of many of King’s most iconic stories, Scott is engaged in a low grade—but escalating—battle with the lesbians next door whose dog regularly drops his business on Scott’s lawn. One of the women is friendly; the other, cold as ice. Both are trying to launch a new restaurant, but the people of Castle Rock want no part of a gay married couple, and the place is in trouble. When Scott finally understands the prejudices they face–including his own—he tries to help. Unlikely alliances, the annual foot race, and the mystery of Scott’s affliction bring out the best in people who have indulged the worst in themselves and others.

 

"Why feel bad about what you couldn't change? Why not embrace it?"