A review by leoniefnk
Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death and Brain Surgery by Henry Marsh

reflective slow-paced

2.25

If seen as a collection of short stories, I might rate this somewhat higher. However, as a single piece this misses the mark purely out of lacking organization disrupting what had the potential for good storytelling. The jumps in time back and forth, not only between phases of life but between specific events which you feel like you've already heard about (and forgotten), is extremely annoying. One story would tangent to another before returning, so that I hardly knew in which anecdote I was in. As someone interesting in a career in surgery, I'm glad I read this, but I found the narrator limited in his own reflection: perhaps he observed the trends in how his behavior, practice, and views have changed, but he does not seem to go beyond that. I finished the book having felt like I had just listened to an old man's disorganized retelling of his life i.e. this felt like a second or third draft. If one switches the order of the chapters, nothing is lost/gained, and I failed to discern an overall message/theme when looking at the stories as a whole. To the author: why should I read this book? What are you trying to tell me?
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