The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande

When I initially read an NPR review about this book, I was immediately interested. Not only is Gawande attempting to present solutions to preventable failures in the medical professions, but in other business environments as well. The Checklist Manifesto is Gawande’s non-fiction account of how to construct and implement checklists in meaningful ways. His particular area of interest is that of safe surgery, but he also offers examples in construction, aviation and investments, to name a few.

The style of this book is very anecdotal. He immediately grabs the reader’s attention by sharing a couple gory surgery horror stories about failures to address key steps or pieces of information in operations. He continues this pattern throughout the book, each section tells a story about how he learned about checklists in a variety of settings and how each checklist is effective or not. His journey is that of a surgeon who is researching checklists for the WHO; he tells us how he came up with the idea, how his checklists were constructed (and re-constructed), and how checklists have measurably changed surgical practices in several of the world’s hospitals.

As an aside, I can barely fathom how Gawande manages to write books in between all of his other jobs. He is a surgeon, a director for patient safety with the WHO (World Health Organization), Harvard professor and father. Any one of these tasks seems like it could be all-consuming. He must be very organized – I suppose he uses checklists to keep track of it all.

Side note: This is not Gawande’s first book. Check out Complications: A Surgeon’s Notes on an Imperfect Science (RD 27.35 .G39 A3 2002 )

36 Arguments for the Existence of God By Rebecca Goldstein

The title of this book is misleading for a couple reasons. First, it is not a list of 36 arguments for the existence of god (although this information is in the appendix). Second, the title makes it sound like the author is making a case for god’s existence. Even if you take the novel format into account, this is not the case (The appendix that includes arguments for god’s existence only includes the arguments so they can be refuted). When I initially discussed this with a friend, I was chastised for not calling the book 36 Arguments for the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction (I kind of think it is a pain to include this subtitle in conversation), but it does help one know what to expect.

The book takes place during a couple weeks of Cass Seltzer’s career; he is a university professor of the psychology of religion and an author who has recently written a book about atheism. The book is not a list of 36 arguments for the existence of god, but he did include an appendix in his book (I believe that Goldstein’s appendix is meant to be Seltzer’s appendix). Even though the book spans a short amount of time, approximately half of the chapters are flashbacks, so the reader really gets to know Cass from the time he was in his 20’s. Several periods of Cass’s life are explained, his relationship with his eccentric mentor, his background as an Orthodox Jew, a failed marriage and a happy new relationship.

Although this is a book about one man’s explorations in religion and life, we can easily put Cass Seltzer’s atheism in perspective. Can’t we be good without the expectation of an eternal reward? Can’t we love our fellow humans without feeling that we are obligated by our religion? In my opinion, the book is less about the faiths that people embrace and more about the ways that they share their faiths and lives with others.