Full name: A Fortunate Man: The Story of a Country Doctor

Author: John Berger Year: 1967 Rank: Rating: Original Rating: Pop Rating: Genres/categories: Non Fiction, Philosophy, Memoirs, Art Purchase/reserch links: LibraryThing Goodreads Amazon ISBNs: 9780679737261 067973726X

In this quietly revolutionary work of social observation and medical philosophy, Booker Prize-winning writer John Berger and the photographer Jean Mohr train their gaze on an English country doctor and find a universal man--one who has taken it upon himself to recognize his patient's humanity when illness and the fear of death have made them unrecognizable to themselves. In the impoverished rural community in which he works, John Sassall tend the maimed, the dying, and the lonely. He is not only the dispenser of cures but the repository of memories. And as Berger and Mohr follow Sassall about his rounds, they produce a book whose careful detail broadens into a meditation on the value we assign a human life. First published thirty years ago, A Fortunate Man remains moving and deeply relevant--no other book has offered such a close and passionate investigation of the roles doctors play in their society. "In contemporary letters John Berger seems to me peerless; not since Lawrence has there been a writer who offers such attentiveness to the sensual world with responsiveness to the imperatives of conscience."--Susan Sontag Similar books: Audrey by Carol Krenz Elizabeth the Queen by Sally Bedell Smith Monarch by Robert Lacey That Woman by Anne Sebba Another Way of Telling by John Berger The Shape of a Pocket by John Berger Ways of Seeing by John Berger About Looking by John Berger The Sense of Sight by John Berger The Success and Failure of Picasso by John Berger Art and Revolution by John Berger Portraits by John Berger And Our Faces, My Heart, Brief as Photos by John Berger Sculpting in Time by Andrei Tarkovsky A Pattern Language by Christopher Alexander Against the Flow by Peter Abbs A language older than words by Derrick Jensen Walk Through Walls by Marina Abramovic Hold Still by Sally Mann A Photographer's Life by Annie Leibovitz