When the Air Hits Your Brain: Tales of Neurosurgery.

Frank Vertosick Jr W W Norton, 16.95 [pounds sterling], pp 268 ISBN 0 393 03894 7

This is the book that every neurosurgeon would like to have written his or her version of, but probably hadn't the time. It is the account of a neurosurgeon's training from medical school to the end of residency, in this case in an American training programme in the 1970s and 80s. Although aimed at the public rather than at neurosurgeons, I could not put it down.

Of course, I am biased: I am probably much the same age as the author and shared many of his experiences, or at least the British version of them. I recognise the same pressures on junior staff, the same developments in …