Separating Fact from Fiction

10 years of experience from University of Rochester’s Family Medicine Residency Program – Global Health Track

Non-fiction

Autobiography / biography

• Ali, Ayyan Hirsi. Infidel. Simon and Schuster, New York, 2007.
• Eggers, Dave. What Is the What: The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng. Vintage House, New York, 2006.
• Kidder, Tracy. Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World. Random House, New York, 2004.
• Nazario, Sonia. Enrique’s Journey: The Story of a Boy’s Dangerous Odyssey to Reunite with His Mother. Random House, New York, 2006.
• Satrapi, Marjane. Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood (2003) and Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return (2004). Pantheon Books, New York. Translated by Anjali Singh.
• Weschler, Suruba Ibumando Georgette. By the Grace of God: A Tale of Love, Family, War and Survival on the Congo. New Horizon Press, Far Hills, NJ, 1999.

Cross-cultural awareness

• Davies, Roger J., and Ikeno, Osamu. The Japanese Mind: Understanding Contemporary Japanese Culture. Tuttle Publishing, Boston, 2002.
• Fadiman, Anne. The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 1997. National Book Critics Circle Award (NBCCA).
• Storti, Craig. The Art of Crossing Cultures. 2nd ed. Intercultural Press, Boston, 1989.

Economics / aid

• Easterly, William. The White Man’s Burden: Why the West’s Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good. Penguin Books, London, 2006.
• George, Henry. Progress and Poverty: An Inquiry into the Cause of Industrial Depressions and of Increase of Want with Increase in Wealth: The Remedy. Originally published in 1879. Abridged edition condensed by Arthur W. Madsen. Hogarth Press, 1953.
• Moyo, Dambisa. Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working and How There Is a Better Way for Africa. Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, New York, 2009.
• Perkins, John. Confessions of an Economic Hit Man. Berrett-Koehler, San Francisco, 2004.
• Sachs, Jeffrey D. The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time. Penguin Press, London, 2005.

Genocide

• Gourevitch, Philip. We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families: Stories from Rwanda. St. Martin’s Press, New York, 1998.
• Him, Chanrithy. When Broken Glass Floats: Growing Up Under the Khmer Rouge. W. W. Norton, New York, 2000.
• Ung, Loung. First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers. HarperCollins, New York, 2000.

History

• Diamond, Jared. Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies. W. W. Norton, New York, 1997. Pulitzer Prize (PP).
• Galeano, Eduardo. Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent. Originally published as Las venas abiertas de América Latina, 1971. Monthly Review Press, New York, 1973.
• Frank, Dana. Bananeras: Women Transforming the Banana Unions of Latin America. South End Press, Cambridge, MA, 2005.

Social action / awareness

• Alvarado, Elvia. Don’t Be Afraid, Gringo: A Honduran Woman Speaks from the Heart. Translated and edited by Medea Benjamin. The Institute for Food and Development Policy, New York, 1987.
• Bornstein, David, and Davis, Susan. Social Entrepreneurship: What Everyone Needs to Know. Oxford University Press, New York, 2010.
• Kristof, Nicholas D., and WuDunn, Sheryl. Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide. Random House, New York, 2009.
• Schweitzer, Albert. The Problem of Peace. Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, given at Oslo University, November 4, 1954. (He won in 1952, but was in Africa in 1952–53 and missed the ceremony.) Considered one of the greatest speeches of human history.
• Taylor, Daniel, and Taylor, Carl. Just and Lasting Change: When Communities Own Their Futures. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 2002.

NBCCA = National Book Critics Circle Award

PP = Pulitzer Prize winner

Fiction

• Alvarez, Julia. In the Time of the Butterflies. Penguin Press, New York, 1995.
• Caputo, Philip. Acts of Faith. Vintage Books (Random House), New York, 2005. Pulitzer Prize (PP).
• Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness. Filiquarian Publishing. First published 1899.
• Dooling, Richard. White Man’s Grave. St. Martin’s Press, New York, 1994.
• Hosseini, Khaled. The Kite Runner. Riverhead Books, Penguin Publishing, New York, 2003.
• Huyler, Frank. Right of Thirst. HarperCollins, New York, 2009.
• Kingsolver, Barbara. The Poisonwood Bible. Harper, New York, 1998.
• Lahiri, Jhumpa. Interpreter of Maladies. Houghton Mifflin, New York, 1999. 198 pages. Pulitzer Prize (PP).
• Lalami, Laila. Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits. Algonquin Books, Workman Publishing, 2005.
• Mistry, Rohinton. A Fine Balance. Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1995.
• Silko, Leslie Marmon. Ceremony. Penguin, New York, 1977.
• Urrea, Luis Alberto. Into the Beautiful North. Little, Brown and Company, New York, 2009.
• Verghese, Abraham. Cutting for Stone. Random House, New York, 2009.
• Walker, Alice. Possessing the Secret of Joy. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, New York, 1992. 286 pages.

Fiction masquerading as non-fiction

Mortenson, Greg, and Relin, David Oliver. Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace One School at a Time. 2006.

If you like this book and are tempted to give to his organization, be sure to read Krakauer, Jon. Three Cups of Deceit: How Greg Mortenson, Humanitarian Hero, Lost His Way. 2011.