Dear Randal has tagged me yet again for one of my favorite memes: anything to do with books! This time it’s all about randomness:
a) Pick up the nearest book of 123 pages or more.
b) Find page 123.
c) Find the first 5 sentences and read them.
d) Post the next 3 sentences.
Well, seeing as I’ve packed almost all of my books already, I grabbed the top book on my return-to-library-eventually stack. I found Dr. Pauline W. Chen’s memoir at Barnes & Noble a few weeks ago and was delighted to find that my local library carried it. (Not always a given.) Anyhoo, Final Exam is very moving reflection of her experiences and thoughts on mortality (she’s a surgeon). Page 123 is the beginning of Chapter 6: The Visible Woman (how very appropriate, in a way), so the 3 sentences I’m to post actually runs to Page 124:
He asked me about my teachers, about my friends, and about what I wanted to be when I grew up. When my mother piped up, filling in my skeletal replies, Dr. Kirkland would turn toward me, his back to my mother, and then repeat my mother’s answers with his left eyebrow raised and a crooked grin on his face. I wondered if he knew the truth.
Oooo, I really love this meme. What, you ask, is the truth of which the future Dr. Chen speaks? You’ll have to read the book to find out! Makes you realize just how important every word, every sentence is in every book, eh?
Oh, before I tag someone, I really want to recommend this book. Dr. Chen’s writing is very straightforward but thoughtful, much like the physician she undoubtedly is, and her stories and musings about her profession (she’s a surgeon specializing in liver transplants) and the meaning of death and life are both engrossing and provocative.
Another excellent book — a little lighter in tone, but equally well written — is neurosurgeon Katrina Firlik’s Another Day in the Frontal Lobe: A Brain Surgeon Exposes Life on the Inside. Even if you’re not especially keen on physician memoirs, Firlik’s is a brilliant book about her struggles as one of the few women in this very demanding, very high-status field, her challenges with life and death, her contagious fascination with the brain (she considers herself both a mechanic and a scientist, and the first chapter elucidates exactly why) and its endless complexity. The anecdotes about some of her patients alone are worth the price of admission.
Anyway, back to our regularly scheduled program:
I hereby tag Astarte’s Student, Polly-vous-Francais and Cassoulet Cafe!
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{ 6 comments }
Great meme! Can’t wait to respond to being tagged. I already opened the book to p 123 and was amazed.
To be posted tomorrow!
Thanks
I love this meme. So much fun!!
Yay! My first tag! I’ll be posting tomorrow.
Meme done! Thanks for tagging me!
Meme is a fait accompli. I cheated and used two books.
I would be fun to compile all these page 123 lines; I just love the randomness. Random is my middle name.
Dear Polly, merci for participating!
LBR, yeah, anything to do with books is a winner with me.
AS, loved your meme post. It really does sound more like a mystery novel, eh? Except it was probably just someone dropping a food processor on the planks.
Dear Polly, I think Randal had a meme going at one time where people contributed a few lines to an ever-evolving story. Not sure where it is now, but I bet it’s taken some pretty bizarre turns!
Salut,
Marjorie
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