Below are a list of books I have personally read over the last five years. Many of these books have helped shape my perspectives on medicine, science and the world.

Books that are labeled with ** are ones I highly recommend for anyone pursuing or in a medical profession. Please see my MCAT page for recommended prep books.

Medical

• An Imperfect Offering - James Orbinski**
• Better - Atul Gawande
• Complications - Atul Gawande**
• Checklist Manifesto - Atul Gawande
• Cutting for Stone - Abraham Verghese
• Gifted Hands - Ben Carson
• Hot Lights Cold Steel – Michael Collins
• House of God - Samuel Shem**
• How We Die – Sherwin Nuland**
• How Doctors Think – Jerome Groopman
• The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down – Anne Faidman
• The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat – Oliver Sacks
• Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures - Vincent Lam

Science

• The Selfish Gene – Richard Dawkins
• The Language of God – Francis Collins
• Billions and Billions – Carl Sagan
• Surely You’re Joking Mr. Feynman - Richard Feynman
• In Search of Memory – Eric Kandel

Economics

• The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference – Malcolm Gladwell
• The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century – Thomas Friedman
• Freakanomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything – Stephen Dubner, Steven Levitt
• Germs, Guns and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies – Jared Diamond
• The Wisdom of Crowds – James Surowiecki
• Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet - Jeffrey Sachs
• The Long Tail - Chris Anderson
• New Rules for the New Economy – Kevin Kelly

Personal Development

• Man’s Search for Meaning – Viktor Frankl
• Night – Elie Wiesel
• The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less – Barry Schwartz
• Stumbling on Happiness – Daniel Gilbert
• Tuesdays with Morrie – Mitch Albom
• How to Stop Worrying and Start Living – Dale Carnegie
• Happier – Tal Ben-Shahar
• Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity – David Allen
• The Last Lecture – Randy Pausch

Fiction

• The Catcher in the Rye – J.D. Salinger
• Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
• A Tale of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
• Ender’s Game – Orson Scott Card

Medical School - recommended resources for getting through med school

• Pocket Medicine - Marc Sabatine (my review)
• Surgical Recall - Blackbourne (my review)
• Netter’s Concise Orthopaedic Anatomy – Jon Thompson
• Introductory Textbook of Psychiatry – Nancy Andreasen
• First Aid for Personal Finance: What Every Medical Student and Resident Should Know (Kindle) – James Chang (my review)
• Success on the Wards - Desai & Katta (my review)

Internal Medicine - my favorite IM texts

• Pocket Medicine - Marc Sabatine (my review)
• Approach to Internal Medicine – David Hui
• Pathophysiology of Heart Disease - Leonard Lily
• Clinical Microbiology Made Ridiculously Simple – Mark Gladwin
• Fundamentals of Neurologic Disease - Larry Davis
• Tarascon Internal Medicine & Critical Care Pocketbook – Robert Lederman
• The ICU Book – Paul Marino
• Mayo Clinic Internal Medicine Review – Amit Ghosh
• Evidence-Based Physical Diagnosis – Steven McGee
• The Rational Clinical Examination: Evidence-Based Clinical Diagnosis – David Simel
• Users’ Guides to the Medical Literature: Essentials of Evidence-Based Clinical Practice - Gordon Guyatt

Disclosure: I earn commissions with each purchase as an Amazon Affiliates partner.