Contact Wounds: A War Surgeon's Education

Surgery is the crude art of cutting people open, yet it is also a symphony of delicate manipulation and subtle chords. So says Jonathan Kaplan in his stunning book Contact Wounds , an electrifying account of a doctor’s education in the classroom, in life, and on the battlefield. Inspired by his father, a military surgeon in World War II and Israel’s nascent fight for statehood, Kaplan became a doctor and was appointed to a post at a woefully understaffed South African general hospital …