My Own Country: A Doctor's Story in Around the World in 80 Books

Aug 07, 2022 Tony rated it really liked it

Shelves: memoir, adapted-for-film, nonfiction, read-for-bookclub

I don't generally read memoirs or biographies, so I never would have picked this up if it hadn't been for my bookclub. I figured I'd give it a chapter or two and then show up to the meeting for the food and drink and let everyone else talk about it. Turns out it sucked me in right away and kept me engrossed the whole way. Verghese is an immigrant doctor -- born in Ethiopia to Christian parents from Goa, he eventually came to the US to finish his medical training as an infectious diseases special ...more

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Apr 22, 2010 Katie rated it really liked it

Shelves: male-author, non-fiction, memoirs, _us-appalachia

In this book, Abraham Verghese writes about treating AIDS patients as a doctor in rural Tennessee in the 1980s. Verghese was born and raised in Ethiopia to Indian parents, attended medical school in India, and completed his residency in Johnson City, Tennesee. He spent a few years in Boston, and then returned to Johnson City and worked in the hospital there, specializing in infectious diseases. By default, he became the HIV/AIDS specialist for Johnson City, and much of the surrounding rural area ...more

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Apr 30, 2016 Karen rated it really liked it

For some reason, I read this first memoir by Verghese, after his second memoir and his book Cutting for Stone. If Verghese wrote ads, I would read them too, he is that good. My Own Country is the memoir of a doctor who has moved to Johnson City , Tennessee, to practice as an Internist. He has a fascination with Infectious Diseases, and becomes the area's leading expert on AIDS.

I love the Verghese's writing style, he writes so beautifully about medicine, that you almost want to enroll in medical ...more

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Dec 23, 2009 Madeleine rated it liked it

Shelves: nonfiction, bio-memoir

This was an interesting read. Verghese recently wrote a successful novel, Cutting for Stone, which means that this book, which was actually published in 1994, got some renewed attention as well. My Own Country is Verghese's story of his work as a straight small-town doctor during the AIDS epidemic. As such, it's also a story about solidarity with the Queer community in a place and a time when that was not a given...more with the solidarity/ally stuff, I know. You ever feel like a theme follows y ...more

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