Today’s Kindle Deal of the Day is Noah Gordon’s bestselling and award-winning The Physician (avg review rating 4.5/5 stars), which is the first book in his Cole Family Trilogy. Anyone who enjoys historical fiction, or the history of science and medicine is sure to enjoy the series. And to get you started, today only, the Kindle edition of The Physician is priced at just $1.99. From Amazon:
Read by millions in thirty-two countries, soon to be a major motion picture, and voted “one of the ten most-beloved books of all time,” here is the first English-language digital edition of Noah Gordon’s masterwork
In eleventh-century London, a child holds the hand of his dying mother and is terrified, aware something is taking her. Orphaned and given to an itinerant barber-surgeon, Rob Cole becomes a fast-talking swindler, peddling a worthless medicine. But as he matures, his strange gift—an acute sensitivity to impending death—never leaves him, and he yearns to become a healer.
Arab madrassas are the only authentic medical schools, and he makes his perilous way to Persia. Christians are barred from Muslim schools, but claiming he is a Jew, he studies under the world’s most renowned physician, Avicenna. How the woman who is his great love struggles against her only rival—medicine—makes a riveting modern classic.
I read this book 13 years ago and it still ranks with me as one of the best books I have ever read. You will feel as if you are in the locals as this book travels across continents. I found myself reading this book when ever I could find time. This would make a great motion picture. Enjoy!! You will not be disappointed.
Shaman is the prize-winning second volume of Noah Gordon’s celebrated Cole trilogy. It is as great a reading experience as The Physician. A New York Times Notable Book.Dr. Robert Judson Cole travels from his ravaged Scotland homeland, through the operating rooms of Boston, to the cabins of frontier Illinois. In the wilderness he befriends the starving remnants of the Sauk tribe, who have fled their reservation. In the process, he absorbs their culture and learns native remedies that enrich the classical medical education he received at Edinburgh University. He marries a remarkable settler woman he had saved from illness. The details of how their deaf son manages to become a physician also, despite his handicap, and the story of how the Cole family is sucked into the bloody vortex of the Civil War and survives, makes an exceptional reading experience.
Sequels aren’t supposed to be this good. What a wonderful followup to The Physician. As a physician there is much to learn about the history of my profession, however, this story transcends the history. The characters are vivid and as in Rob J vol.I Gordon displays honestly characters with all their warts and makes us like them anyway. For me, this wasn’t Shaman as much as it was Rob J. One of the best reads in quite some time. It is a story that sets its own tempo and one you won’t want to rush through. I revisited many parts of the book while reading it. It won’t be the last time I read it. I have added the hard cover to my permanent library. I encourage everyone to read both The Physician first than Shaman. Don’t be daunted by the size of the books. Every page is a delight.