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Dec 17, 2009

Miguel rated it:

I am not really sure where to begin when it comes to this book. Let us just say that Tracy Kidder writes a mean biography/account of perhaps one of the most influential people of our (Generation iPod/big box stores) time. This book really encapsulates what I imagine Paul Farmer's credo is; that is to say, fuck the idea of appropriate technology, sustainability and cost-effectiveness this is human suffering that we are flapping our tongues about...get real.

Sheer eloquence I know More...

0 comments like (10 people liked it)

Nov 21, 2007

Meg rated it:

6 comments like (6 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Catherine rated it:

I wish I had known. Paul Farmer, the subject of this book's adoration, spoke at Columbia's commencement ceremony this past May. At that time, I had never heard of him. If I had known, I would have gone and been able to see first-hand who he is.
"Mountains Beyond Mountains" is neither biography nor non-fiction, but is more a commentary on the author's time spent with Dr. Paul Farmer. It briefly browses through his life story: very unusual upbringing, extremely well-educated genius, More...

1 comment like (9 people liked it)

Aug 26, 2007

Sarah rated it:

For anyone who yearns to "make a difference" but feels overwhelmed at where to start, this book will inspire you, maybe even shock you. Doctor Paul Farmer decided at the age of 23 to devote his life to treating the poor. He established a clinic in one of the most impoverished parts of Haiti called Zanmi Lasante. Over the next twenty years, he treated not just the poor in Haiti, but expanded to treat the poor in Peru and prisoners in Russia, leading efforts to address "impossible" More...

0 comments like (6 people liked it)

Jan 25, 2008

bruin rated it:

in my opinion our construction of heroes in this world leaves a lot to be desired. and while paul farmer might indeed being doing incredible work with an incredible attitude/perspective, i tired quickly of this book's idolation and unquestioning worship.

this is *not* how we will create more heroes among ourselves and others. this is precisely how people like dr. king have been removed from the people and pedastalized to the detriment of our movements and our visions for change.
More...

5 comments like (8 people liked it)

Apr 27, 2008

Rose rated it:

Mountains Beyond Mountains is a biography of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Harvard educated physician who, in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds, set out to bring life-saving, 'first-world' medical practices to the desperately poor in rural Haiti. This book has almost become essential reading for those who have even the most cursory interest in fields often referred to as global health, social medicine, or public health.

Paul Farmer is a unique doctor who seems genuinely called to a life More...

0 comments like (7 people liked it)

Jan 04, 2011

Osho rated it:

+ Satisfying tone and pace, an uplifting and far-flung narrative
- Nothing substantive to critique

Highly readable and very satisfying, this is, to the best of my knowledge, the first of Kidder's books in which he appears other than as a distanced narrator. While House and The Soul of a New Machine were certainly very enjoyable, Mountains beyond Mountains is simply engrossing. This is due not only to its subject, the eccentric, opinionated, and deeply generous Dr. Paul Farmer, bu More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jul 08, 2007

Anna rated it:

This is required reading for all PC health volunteers. Just remember “If Paul is the standard, we are all fucked.” Farmer is a doctor working in rural Haiti, a land that many have forgotten and others are willfully ignoring. Tracy Kidder is a journalist who runs across Farmer while on assignment covering the political turmoil of Haiti in 1994. Kidder unexpectedly finds a man many would call (and have called) a saint. A enigmatic figure in jeans and a black shirt, Paul Farmer has taken on crippli More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Aug 22, 2011

Anna-karin rated it:

I find it difficult to describe this book. There is a line in it that says something to the effect of: Don't let perfect get in the way of good. That describes the book as well as the doctor that the book is about. The good that this doctor has brought about and continues to bring about, and the good that the book has brought about by publicizing this, is hard to overestimate. While there are mistakes made by those who are working to bring about good, when we criticize their mistakes and hide ou More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

carrie rated it:

If you would like to feel like you are self-centered and haven't accomplished much, read about Doctor Paul. I was going to try to cure Africa of TB, but I just haven't had time lately. I need to meet this guy, if only to hear more stories about growing up on a bus. This book unfolds in a grabbing way, and reads easily despite a telling of facts and events.

1 comment like (5 people liked it)

Jun 23, 2011

Debs rated it:

When companies have to make really hard decisions everyday, they create a protocol to take the emotions out of the process and to focus only on value. When governments do it, it's called collateral damage. Paul Farmer doesn't believe in protocol OR collateral damage. He believes in curing people of curable diseases, no matter where they live, who they are or how much money they have.

I keep trying to think of a metaphor to describe Farmer's drive. Imagine if your house was on fi More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Apr 05, 2009

Cait rated it:

I lived on the Dominican Republic/Haiti border for a few years as a child, so the initial description in this book of how Haiti is fucked doesn't come as a surprise. I mean. Just about everything that could possibly go wrong on the road to becoming a self-sustaining country has just been ripped from them. (ASK ME MY FEELINGS ON THE LATEST COUP THERE AGH, AGH, OH MY GOD, AGH.)

Haiti: fucked. CHECK.

The book then goes on to describe the life and training of Paul Farmer. Paul More...

3 comments like (6 people liked it)

Mar 11, 2008

Erin rated it:

This book was amazing. Dr. Paul Farmer is my hero. This story really gives you a new perspective, it is very inspiring.

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Apr 20, 2011

Gavin rated it:

This book has come in and out of our house a couple of times in the last few years and for some reason I never got down to reading it. Which is silly as I think Partners in Health (PIH) is one of the most excellent organizations around. So at some point I picked it up and it was as good as promised. It was fascinating to see how long Tracy Kidder followed Paul Farmer et al around. Sometimes the book was like peeking over PIH's shoulder into the behind-the-scenes work that's never shown in the gl More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Nov 27, 2008

Hans rated it:

Though I am sure that Dr. Paul Farmer has flaws like the rest of us, he does have something that makes him stand apart, a powerful dedication to others. Certainly there may be ways to criticize this book, either by focusing on the trivial like writing style or the implausibility of replicating what he has done, but the overall message is what is so powerfully compelling. It is more than a story about one man's struggle to make the world better for the less fortunate. It is a reflection and an More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Apr 26, 2008

Mark rated it:

This is the story of one man’s quest to cure the world. Paul Farmer provides an inspiring way of dealing with the world’s poor and their access to health care. In short, he believes that politics is nothing but medicine practiced on a large scale and if the correct political decisions are made, many of the world’s health problems would either go away or become quite manageable. Farmer backs up his convictions not by just trotting around the globe attending WHO meetings and being a professor a More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Sep 23, 2007

Juliet rated it:

This was such an engrossing book. I think my response to Paul Farmer was a bit like author Tracy Kidder's - fascinated admiration mixed with a feeling of personal inadequacy leading to a blend of irritated fan worship. How could I ever be like this guy? Isn't he amazing? And liberation theology - wow, what a concept but how does preferential option for the poor work in real life? It seems so "all or nothing." Give up my bread -so to speak- like Farmer, so the poor can eat?

W More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Sep 23, 2010

Mona rated it:

I had to read this book for my political science class on contemporary political issues. The book was part of the section on power. Although I started the book reluctantly, to my surprise I put off my pleasure reading to finish it in three days. The book is nonfiction and tells the story of Paul Farmer, a young doctor and Harvard professor who starts a comprehensive health care system called Zanmi Lasante ("Partners in Health" - also the name of the parent organization based in America More...

1 comment like

Sep 11, 2007

Jenna rated it:

I feel like I didn't really understand this book. Some of the arguments that the book makes (e.g., the argument that "cost-effective" thinking is no good, or the argument that trekking into the mountains to visit individual patients is a better use of Paul Farmer's time than doing health-policy work that could save many more lives) just didn't seem very convincing, as though they wouldn't hold much water if delivered into the talons of a rigorous logician. That being said, this book More...

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Dec 17, 2009

Ryan rated it:

Great portrait of an inspiring yet complicated man, Paul Farmer, who has a reverential following among many young people interested in global public health. This biography is great (won the Pulitzer Prize in 2003) in part because it presents a more complicated picture of Farmer, where a mere glorification would be easier and possibly better received.

The interesting thing to me is that Paul Farmer's dedication is inspirational, and yet I totally disagree with him on some points - for More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 29, 2007

kevin rated it:

Haiti is a complex nation with a heroic history often sullied and distorted by former colonial powers. Kidder's book is as much a profile of the struggling communities of Haiti's central plateau as it is a biography of the tireless Doktè Paul Farmer.

Kidder offers a balanced view of Farmer's astonishing work for the reader to honor, question, criticize, and admire without didactic hand-holding. I particularly enjoyed the details of Farmer's day-to-day life. Following the doctor's r More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Jan 14, 2009

Jerjonji rated it:

Once in a rare while you read a book that could change the world if enough people read it. This is one of those books- about a man who is literally changing the world--- one sick patient at a time. A must-read for the thinking modern person who has a heart for the woes of the poor.

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Apr 03, 2008

Holly rated it:

This was a book for book club, and it's not something I would have picked up on my own. I'm so glad I read it though--it's all about Paul Farmer, a doctor who has devoted his life (and I mean every minute of his life) to taking care of the poorest people in the world. Haiti is his favorite place, where he first realized his calling, and he spends most of his time there. But he travels all around the world, incessantly, treating MDR tuberculosis and AIDS in particular. We had our book club meetin More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Kerry rated it:

This biography of Paul Farmer is a fascinating account of an inspiring individual. Tracy Kidder's writing is what makes this book so interesting to read. His honest, realistic take on how people react to this driven, dedicated medical anthropologist/doctor/public health advocate is part of what makes this book so riveting. The author's account of his struggle to keep up with the doctor who is willing to travel around the world for his cause, forgo sleep for work, and hike hours to remote huts More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 16, 2009

Dan rated it:

Became enthralled with Dr Paul Farmer's determination to bring 21rst Century medicine to some of the world's poorest--Haitians. This is a heart-warming and enfuriating biography; reads pretty fast.

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 28, 2011

Corinne rated it:

Have you heard of Dr. Paul Farmer? I know that until my sister recommended this book to me, I hadn't. I also didn't really know much about Haiti except what I'd seen on the news after the earthquake. If you want to learn about Paul Farmer, learning about the plight of Haiti is just part of the journey, because this doctor has taken upon himself the effort to secure medical care in this country where just finding one meal a day is a chore. Paul's creed is that one life is just not worth more More...

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Dec 13, 2008

Book Lover rated it:

I enjoyed the book, which describes Paul Farmer, a doctor who finds his calling in serving the poorest amoung us, particularly in third world countries, such as Peru and Haiti. The book tells the story of how he ignored conventional wisdom concerning fighting TB and AIDs epidemics in parts of the world where it was considered not economically feasible to fight these diseases because the poorest couldn't afford the meds. He refuted that idea and proved it could be done if one would stick to what More...

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Feb 08, 2012

Rebecca rated it:

Oh so good. I really enjoyed reading this book. Had started it a few years ago and couldn't get into it. Now I have no idea why not. Right up my alley with public health, infectious disease, and providing quality health care in areas of extreme poverty. Maybe that's why I liked it - as I'm preparing to go to Ethiopia in 6 weeks. Story of Paul Farmer an ID physician who devotes his life to working with Haitians and improving their health care systems.

Some good quotes:

"H More...

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Jan 06, 2012

Vivian rated it:

I read this book on the recommendation of my niece, and I wasn't disappointed. While the writing is uneven in spots, and the timeline is jerky, it is basically a narrative of the author's time spent with Dr. Paul Farmer, with some background facts and interviews with friends, family and colleagues woven in to give more of a biographical flavor to the story. It was fascinating to learn about this man's life, and the causes to which he has chosen to dedicate his work and his free time. Some might More...

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Dec 07, 2011

Elizabeth rated it:

Tracy Kidder is a genius. MOUNTAINS BEYOND MOUNTAINS is a journalistic portrait of Paul Farmer, the founder of Partners in Health and an extraordinary advocate for the Haitian poor. I admire how Kidder includes just enough of his own sense of intrigue--what makes this guy tick?--and discomfort--how come Farmer makes him feel inadequate?--to hook the reader in what feels like a personal story but in fact is largely biography. This book is a good example of literary journalism.

Farmer More...

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