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November 15, 2009
50 in 50. #8: Beat the Reaper
Oh, no, please don’t make me read another business book! Here I am, barely scratching the surface of my misbegotten quest to read 50 books in 50 days and I’m already burned out. Too many facts and figures! Too many challenges needing to be solved! Too much good advice, spread across too many pages.
So I’ve fallen off the wagon and read a work of fiction: Beat the Reaper by Josh Bazell. My only (thin) rationale for including this book in my count is that it is set in a workplace: a major metropolitan hospital. So it might have some lessons for us, but for the fact that the hero is a pill-popping, wise-talking, emotionally tortured doctor who used to be a Mafia hitman.
Okay, okay, so it’s not very realistic. But that’s why I needed to read it—as a break from the unrelenting realism of business books.
And Beat the Reaper is a ripping good read. One reviewer called it, “House meets The Sopranos.” You can throw in some Grey’s Anatomy, The Godfather and ER for good measure.
Need to escape the reality of your life? Beat the Reaper will do the trick nicely.
Tomorrow, I’m back in business. Sigh.
Posted by Alison Davis at November 15, 2009 04:10 PM
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Comments
Seriously, Alison. You read a work of fiction, and is it by an author with whom you actually attended writing classes? I'm willing to bet it is not. Is it written by an author with whom you once shared an editing desk? Once again, my money's on "no." May I recommend a possible work of fiction for the next time you need an escape?
Posted by: Jeff Cohen at November 15, 2009 05:12 PM
You're absolutely right. Which book of yours do you recommend?
Posted by: Alison Davis at November 16, 2009 03:23 PM