ScribeAmerica Summer Reading List
The heat is on and so is the sunscreen! If laying in the sun with your feet in the sand and a book in your hand is one of your favorite summer activities, continue on to find out what your ScribeAmerica peers are reading this season.
Artemis from Andy Weir & Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo” by Zora Neale Hurston
“I find it harder to read as much as I’d like but I have resolved to read two books this summer. I like sci-fi and loved his first story, The Martian, so I just started reading Artemis from Andy Weir. Queued up after that is Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo” by Zora Neale Hurston. I enjoyed Their Eyes Were Watching God when I read it back in high school, so I was interested in reading this early unreleased non-fiction work she wrote in 1927, before she rose to fame.” Justin Wilson, Sr. Director of Communications
When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi
“This memoir is of an accomplish brain surgeon who dies from brain cancer at the end of his residency. My mom got this book for me while I was studying for my MCATs. My career goal is to be a neurosurgeon and when she was calling on a hospital for her job with Abbott, one of the doctors mentioned this book for my mom to give to me.” Patricia Bucci
Better & Complications both by the award-winning author Atul Gawande
Complications: In gripping accounts of true cases, surgeon Atul Gawande explores the power and the limits of medicine, offering an unflinching view from the scalpel’s edge. Complications lays bare a science not in its idealized form but as it actually is―uncertain, perplexing, and profoundly human.
Better: The struggle to perform well is universal: each of us faces fatigue, limited resources, and imperfect abilities in whatever we do. But nowhere is this drive to do better more important than in medicine, where lives may be on the line with any decision. Sawyer Harrison, Scribe
The Knife Man by Wendy Khadijah Moore
In The Knife Man, Wendy Moore unveils John Hunter’s murky and macabre world—a world characterized by public hangings, secret expeditions to dank churchyards, and gruesome human dissections in pungent attic rooms. This is a fascinating portrait of a remarkable pioneer and his determined struggle to haul surgery out of the realms of meaningless superstitious ritual and into the dawn of modern medicine. Melissa Brenae Herrera
Hidden Figures, by Margot Lee Shetterly
I currently have Hidden Figures, by Margot Lee Shetterly in my beach tote bag. It’s the story of the African-American women mathematicians who helped NASA win the space race. I’ve watched the award-winning movie and enjoyed the characters; however, film adaptations often miss the details contained in the book. I’m excited to see how they compare. Mirembe Birigwa, Editorial Manager
Braving the Wilderness by Brene Brown
This turned out to be a great motivational book that takes a deep dive into the meaning of True Belonging. The author is a huge fan of Maya Angelou and struggles to agree with and wrap her head around this one statement that Dr. Angelou said in 1973; You are only free when you realize you belong no place – you belong every place – no place at all. The price is high. The reward is great. As humans, we are driven to fill a need to belong, and if we can fight that inner desire and understand that we don’t belong anywhere, we will belong everywhere. Mallory Hernandez, Marketing Manager
Here are a few links to some other great summer reading lists if you are still looking for inspiration!