When the Air Hits Your Brain (WW Norton & Co)

With poignant insight and humour, "When the Air Hits Your Brain" chronicles a man's evolution from naive and ambitious young houseman to world-class neurosurgeon. In electrifying detail, Frank Vertosick Jr describes some of the greatest challenges of his career, including a six-week-old infant with a tumour in her brain, a young man struck down in his prime by paraplegia and a clergyman with a.22-caliber bullet lodged in his skull. Told through intimate portraits of Vertosick's patients and unsparing yet fascinatingly detailed descriptions of surgical procedures, "When the Air Hits Your Brain" - the culmination of decades spent struggling to learn an unforgiving craft - illuminates both the mysteries of the mind and the realities of the operating room.