4.0

When I picked this up at the library, I thought it was going to be a travelogue. (Look, my list didn't have the subtitle.) It wasn't, but that was okay.

I'm not sure the concept would have appealed to me had you described it to me- how One Guy is doing healthcare in places that desperately need it, basically. With a lot on Haiti. Which, like any anything about Haiti, causes the reaction, "OMG, poor Haiti." Because .... poor Haiti. The country hasn't had a good break in like 200 years.

I am definitely less familiar with non-Spanish-speaking countries in this hemisphere, so this was a reacquaintance with it, combined with an awe-inspiring biography of three guys (ok, mostly one of them, but there's a liberal dose of Ophelia and Jim and a bit about some other players) who decided, we should do something about this. And they did. Plus fought TB places besides Haiti. Through a combination of personal action and international diplomacy and bullheaded focus, they created Partners in Health, which is enough of a big deal that even someone as removed as myself has heard of it.

The book jumps around a bit, which I found particularly annoying at the beginning, but there's so much to tell and it's so interesting (and, obviously, well told) that I got past that. And am glad I did.

It's a pretty inspiring but humbling book - what have you done to save the world lately? (Me, I've written a bunch of book reviews....imaginary Paul Farmer is not impressed.)

(And for the second book in this batch, policy is hard.)