Two Jungles

    Marina leaves the jungle of her gynecological residency after a surgical accident for a career in pharmacology. The drug company for which she works sends her to investigate progress on a potentially lucrative drug being researched in the jungle of the Amazon Basin of Brazil.  There she's reunited with her resident supervisor and learns that the research has found a second drug which is more beneficial but not a great money maker.  All this is in State of Wonder, Ann Patchett's 2011 novel.
     The book is engaging from the beginning and occasionally a page turner. The medical and pharmacological data are far beyond my ability to evaluate. Having spent a few days in the Amazon Basin I found the jungle descriptions very interesting. The book is full of many twists and turns both in the plot and in the moral issues that surface. 
    It's well worth reading.

Takk for alt,

Al

PS Some quotes for pandemic land:
      
Edmund Wilson said, “If I could only remember that the days were, not bricks to be laid row on row, to be built into a solid house, where one might dwell in safety and peace, but only food for the fires of the heart.”
And: “No two persons ever read the same book.” Writer's Almanac, May 8, 2020

"For while the tale of how we suffer, and how we are delighted, and how we may triumph is never new, it always must be heard. There isn't any other tale to tell, it's the only light we've got in all this darkness."  Writer's Almanac, May 8, 2020

―James Baldwin