The tragedy in Haiti has brought new attention to Tracy Kidder’s Mountains Beyond Mountains (2003, Random House) about Dr. Paul Farmer’s work to solve the country’s public-health problems. It’s been in the top 100 on Amazon for the past 7 days. Farmer’s organization, Partners in Health is behind the Stand on Haiti relief effort (check out the video on the site by librarian Cliff Landis, who created a matching grant of $10,000 for the organization. Warning: don’t watch it if you don’t want to be caught crying in front of your computer).

It’s included in the Daily Beast‘s list of  The Best Books on Haiti (one testy comment points out that it’s actually the best books in English on the country) and the more extensive list on the “Shelf Renewal” blog at Library Journal:

• Understanding Haiti, Part 1 — Nonfiction
• Understanding Haiti, Part 2 — Fiction

There will obviously be more books published on Haiti and specifically on the earthquake. Time magazine has already announced a book by their reporters and photographers; at least $75,000 of the profits will go to Haiti relief efforts. It will be released first as a “bookazine” on 1/29 and as a hardcover in February. Bibliographic information is not yet available.

Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World Tracy Kidder Retail Price: $18.00 Paperback: 352 pages Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks – (2009-08-25) ISBN / EAN: 0812980557 / 9780812980554

Also in unabridged audio from Books on Tape

Book and audio available from OverDrive.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 20th, 2010 at 12:30 pm and is filed under Readers Advisory. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.