Samuel Shem Book order

"Serves up heaping portions of yearning, passion, alienation, and regret, and establishes Dana Shem-Ur as one of the rising stars of the new Israeli literature."--Joshua Cohen, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Netanyahus A piercing novel about life abroad in a cultural setting not one's own: Reut is an Israeli translator living in Paris with a French husband and their child. She's made sacrifices for her family but now feels a simmering discontent and estrangement that explodes at a festive dinner party with affluent, intellectual friends. During the sumptuous meal, she navigates a tangle of cultural codes with which she's never been fully at ease. This is a novel about big life choices that examines a woman's attitudes toward belonging to a man, to a culture, to a language. Where I Am is an intimate, witty book portraying a profoundly human yearning to stop everything, to lay down one's head, and to feel--if only for a moment--at home.

In this sequel to The House of God and Man's 4th Best Hospital, Dr. Roy Basch returns to his economically depressed hometown in upstate New York to help the struggling hospital battle the COVID-19 pandemic and the money-driven bureacracy. After the tragic climax of Man's 4th Best Hospital, four doctors have left practicing medicine. But with COVID-19 sweeping the country, they come together to help the small town of Columbia, New York. The doctors and nurses are buckling as they battle both a raging pandemic and the financial woes facing small hospitals everywhere. But no matter what's happening in the world, babies are born, people fall in love, and doctors will do anything to save their patients. Our Hospital reveals the daily struggle of fighting a pandemic and its personal impact on healthcare workers young and old, who are terrified, exhausted...and determined, somehow, to prevail.

The sequel to the bestselling and highly acclaimed The House of God Years after the events of The House of God, the Fat Man has been given leadership over a new Future of Medicine Clinic at what is now only Man's 4th Best Hospital, and has persuaded Dr. Roy Basch and some of his intern cohorts to join him to teach a new generation of interns and residents. In a medical landscape dominated by computer screens and corrupted by money, they have one goal: to make medicine humane again. What follows is a mesmerizing, heartbreaking, and hilarious exploration of how the health-care industry, and especially doctors, have evolved over the past thirty years.

As women’s spirituality continues to gain popularity, The Buddha’s Wife offers to a broad audience for the first time the intimate and profound story of Princess Yasodhara, the wife Buddha left behind, and her alternative journey to spiritual enlightenment. What do we know of the wife and child the Buddha abandoned when he went off to seek his enlightenment? The Buddha’s Wife brings this rarely told story to the forefront, offering a nuanced portrait of this compelling and compassionate figure while also examining the practical applications her teachings have on our modern lives. Princess Yasodhara’s journey is one full of loss, grief, and suffering. But through it, she discovered her own enlightenment within the deep bonds of community and “ordinary” relationships. While traditional Buddhism emphasizes solitary meditation, Yasodhara’s experience speaks of “The Path of Right Relation,” of achieving awareness not alone but together with others. The Buddha’s Wife is comprised of two parts: the first part is a historical narrative of Yasodhara’s fascinating story, and the second part is a “how-to” reader’s companion filled with life lessons, practices, and reflections for the modern seeker. Her story provides a relational path, one which speaks directly to our everyday lives and offers a doorway to profound spiritual maturation, awakening, and wisdom beyond the solitary, heroic journey.

Set in rural China, this epic novel explores the complex relationships between two mothers and a father united by their love for the same daughter. Against the backdrop of an ancient mountain monastery and the one-child-per-family policy, the story delves into the themes of adoption, loss, and rebirth. Inspired by the author's own experiences, it highlights the emotional journey that unfolds when the daughter brings her adopted and birth mothers together, revealing deep connections and the transformative power of love.

Set in the tumultuous 1920s, the narrative follows Bill Wilson, a stockbroker whose life spirals out of control due to alcoholism, and Dr. Bob Smith, a surgeon who shares a similar struggle. Together, they forge the foundation of Alcoholics Anonymous, while their wives establish Al-Anon, offering support for families affected by addiction. This revised edition captures the personal battles and triumphs of these pioneers, highlighting themes of resilience, recovery, and the power of community in overcoming addiction.

From the bestselling author of the The House of God comes an ambitious novel about the complicated relationships between mothers and sons, doctors and patients, the past and the present, and love and death... Settled into a relationship with an Italian yoga instructor and working in Europe, Dr. Orville Rose's peace is shaken by his mother's death. On his return to Columbia, a Hudson River town of quirky people and “plagued by breakage,” he learns that his mother has willed him a large sum of money, her 1981 Chrysler, and her Victorian house in the center of town. There's one odd catch: he must live in her house for one year and thirteen days. As he struggles with his decision—to stay and meet the terms of the will or return to his life in Italy—Orville reconnects with family, reunites with former friends, and comes to terms with old rivals and bitter memories. In the process he’ll discover his own history, as well as his mother’s, and finally learn what it really means to be a healer, and to be healed.

In trade paperback for the first time, the lacerating and brilliant novel of psychiatrists and patients--"[a] superbly incisive and witty sequel to Shem's bestselling "The House of God" ("Publisher's Weekly").

As in all hospitals, the medical hierarchy of The House of God was a pyramid - a lot at the bottom and one at the top.Put another way it was like an ice-cream cone...you had to lick your way up! Roy Basch, the 'red-hot' Rhodes Scholar, thought differently - but then he hadn't met Hyper Hooper, out to win the most post-mortems of the year award, nor Molly, the nurse with the crash helmet.He hadn't even met any of the Gomers ('Get Out of My Emergency Room!'), the no-hopers who wanted to die but who were worth more alive!