The Soul of a New Machine really grabbed me in college. Tracy Kidder wrote with a unique style that (to me) really drives the narrative forward while making you stop and consider the forces behind the story he's telling. The characters he writes about are real people and they seem like it.

Moutains Beyond Mountains[1], another book by Kidder, is even more compelling to me. It's a fascinating story of Paul Farmer, who dedicated his life to fighting infectious disease, especially in Haiti.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountains_Beyond_Mountains

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edbaskerville 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Mountains Beyond Mountains was an incredible recruiting tool for health equity work, inspiring a huge number of people (including my partner) to try to follow in Paul Farmer's footsteps.

(Farmer himself died a few years ago, at only 62, of a sudden heart attack in his sleep, but he seems to have put in about 100 lifetimes worth of work. One wonders if his legendary overwork contributed to an early death.)

	▲	Arubis 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Virtually everybody I knew in the US Peace Corps had read and been inspired by Mountains Beyond Mountains. It's safe to say it'd been a strong nudge in that direction for many.

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ghc 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

He always spoke more about "Mountains Beyond Mountains" than his other works, I think because of what he had to endure to write it. It caused him severe illness and health problems due to the locations he had to go to.

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indigodaddy 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

My favorite was actually the one about the carpenters/house builders (forget the name of it, I need to dig it out of some box in the garage and read it again)

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schoen 3 hours ago | parent [-]

That book is just called House, although I always confuse the title with J. D. Salinger's Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters.

	▲	indigodaddy 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Hah, I should have remembered that title. Just ordered the Truck Full of Money book. I hadn't really kept track of his later works.

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CodingJeebus 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Mountains Beyond Mountains is a pantheon read for me.

Farmer grew up incredibly poor, got into Duke and Harvard, had opportunities to make incredible money and traded it for a life of providing medical care to the third world on a shoestring budget while schooling organizations like the WHO on how to provide care along the way.

Truly one of one.

	▲	AntiRush 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Agreed. Farmer's O for the P (provide a preferential option for the poor in health care) was clearly central to his life. I think about it often. On top of that he was incredibly competent at navigating the combination of hostile bureaucracy, apathy, and disorganization. It's incredible what he and PIH accomplished.