Enter your mobile number or email address below and we'll send you a link to download the free Kindle App. Then you can start reading Kindle books on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.

  • Apple
  • Android
  • Windows Phone
  • Android

To get the free app, enter your email address or mobile phone number.
Download to your computer
Kindle Cloud Reader

My Own Country: A Doctor's Story of a Town and Its People in the Age of Aids

by
Abraham Verghese (Author)
› Visit Amazon's Abraham Verghese Page
Find all the books, read about the author, and more.
See search results for this author
Are you an author? Learn about Author Central
Abraham Verghese (Author)
4.6 out of 5 stars 234 customer reviews
ISBN-13: 978-0671785147
ISBN-10: 0671785141
Why is ISBN important?
ISBN
This bar-code number lets you verify that you're getting exactly the right version or edition of a book. The 13-digit and 10-digit formats both work.
Scan an ISBN with your phone
Use the Amazon App to scan ISBNs and compare prices.
Have one to sell? Sell on Amazon

Sorry, there was a problem.

There was an error retrieving your Wish Lists. Please try again.

Sorry, there was a problem.

List unavailable.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest
Buy used
$6.92
Condition: Used - Acceptable
In Stock. Sold by August & Alistair, Fulfilled by Amazon
Condition: Used: Acceptable
Comment: Dust jacket has a little discoloration at the top from shelf storage. Pages are clean with no writing or marks and are still white. The top edge of the book has a few very small dots from aging.

Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) is a service we offer sellers that lets them store their products in Amazon's fulfillment centers, and we directly pack, ship, and provide customer service for these products. Something we hope you'll especially enjoy: FBA items qualify for FREE Shipping and .

If you're a seller, Fulfillment by Amazon can help you increase your sales. We invite you to learn more about Fulfillment by Amazon .

Access codes and supplements are not guaranteed with used items.
69 Used from $0.48
FREE Shipping on orders over $25.
More Buying Choices
19 New from $15.89 69 Used from $0.48 7 Collectible from $19.94
95 used & new from $0.48
See All Buying Options
Free Two-Day Shipping for College Students with Amazon Student Free%20Two-Day%20Shipping%20for%20College%20Students%20with%20Amazon%20Student

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought

Page 1 of 1 Start overPage 1 of 1
This shopping feature will continue to load items. In order to navigate out of this carousel please use your heading shortcut key to navigate to the next or previous heading.
Back
  1. The Tennis Partner
    Abraham Verghese
    4.2 out of 5 stars 200
    Hardcover
  2. Cutting for Stone: A novel
    Abraham Verghese
    4.5 out of 5 stars 3,509
    Hardcover
    $22.19 Prime
  3. The Tennis Partner
    Abraham Verghese
    4.2 out of 5 stars 200
    Paperback
    $9.75 Prime
  4. By Abraham Verghese: Cutting for Stone: A novel
    -Knopf-
    4.7 out of 5 stars 15
    Hardcover
  5. Cutting for Stone
    Abraham Verghese
    4.5 out of 5 stars 3,509
    Paperback
    $10.40 Prime
  6. Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance
    Atul Gawande
    4.6 out of 5 stars 332
    Hardcover
    $15.55 Prime
Next
NO_CONTENT_IN_FEATURE

Product Details

  • Hardcover: 352 pages
  • Publisher: Simon & Schuster (May 10, 1994)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0671785141
  • ISBN-13: 978-0671785147
  • Product Dimensions: 1 x 6.5 x 9.8 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
  • Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (234 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #69,706 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

    •  Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?

Important Information

Ingredients
Example Ingredients

Directions
Example Directions

Customer Reviews

Top Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 starsOne of the best memoirs I've ever read
By Mari Lu Robbins (marilu3123@aol.com) on August 28, 1999
Format: Paperback
With the eye, ear and voice of a novelist and with the compassion of a healer, Dr. Abraham Verghese has taken his experiences as "the AIDS doctor" of east Tennessee and turned them into an incredible memoir. This is one of the most touching and engrossing books I've read in years.
When Verghese landed in Johnson City, Tennessee in 1985, he came as a newly-accredited infectious diseases specialist to treat veterans, most of whom had lung cancer and emphysema, and to spend one day a week in the town medical center he learned to call the "Miracle Center". When the center's first AIDS patient entered the hospital, it was the beginning of the plague which would soon extend across the country, not just in the big city locales where the majority of homosexual men and drug abusers lived. They were coming home to die.
Because the young doctor had a strong desire to help and an ability to tolerate the differences of others, he gradually found himself almost obsessed with caring for his patients. He loved them as people, and as they began to die, he mourned. They were on his mind constantly, even when he was home with his beautiful wife and small sons to the point where his marriage and the center of his home became endangered by his devotion to a setting and to people which excluded them.
This book is so beautifully written I could not put it down. Each patient became fully alive for me, thanks to Verghese's ability to describe them, and I, too, mourned them as they passed. This is a memoir I will not soon forget. Poignant in its humanity, staggering in the scope of its tragedy, it will remain Verghese's monument to Tennessee and the people he came to love in all their variety.
Wonderful book.
5 Comments 198 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
Report abuse
5.0 out of 5 starsThis account of the early days of AIDS rings true.
By K. Brock on January 25, 1999
Format: Paperback
As a physician who was just finishing training when AIDS burst on the scene in the 80's, the panic and fear among medical staff described in this book are actually tame to what I saw in my hospital. I am one of those "who would, " as Dr. Verghese categorized those who would or would not care for HIV infected patients, and this truly separated us from the vast majority of those at that time who let their fear rule over their intellect. Dr. Verghese tells this exciting story with great compassion for his patients and their families, and it is clear that his emotional connection to them, which is stongly discouraged in medical training, came at great personal cost. As someone who now lives and practices in East Tennessee, I feel he accurately described the people, the culture, and the region's great beauty. His yearning to fit in--to have a home--is poignantly obvious throughout the book even as he becomes more and more isolated from his family and his collegues. Several of my collegues trained under or worked with Dr. Verghese during this time, and they all attest to his brilliance as a diagnostician, his great empathy for his patients, his nonjudgemental approach to the gay lifestyle, and his decency and approachability as a person. This book, in their opinions, is an accurate portrayal of the AIDS story in the rural setting. I am drawn to medical writing, particularly when written by physicians themselves, and Dr. Verghese is a master. This book moved me to tears as the deaths of all of these patients began to add up toward the end of the book, and one can't help but to feel the great waste of life that this virus causes. As a hospice medical director, I was also touched by Dr.Read more ›
Comment 122 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
Report abuse
5.0 out of 5 starsa stunning book
By Stephanie Manley VINE VOICE on July 6, 2001
Format: Paperback
This book is absolutely stunning. Verghese's writing style is so unusual as he writes with humor, compassion, and keeps you fully informed as a outsider to his patients treatment, and their disease. During the begining stages of our dealings with the AIDS virus we were so quick to judge the population that received AIDS rather than treating it as a disease that impacts not only the patient but their family. Verghese is able to reflect a wholistic picture of the patient, and their family. He was a person that was interested in the patient, the disease, and learning about the gay culture. He did so in way that was free of prejudice, and it was a true learning experience. I highly recommend this book for those that wish to read a good book as well as those that are interested in the early days of the AIDS epidemic.
1 Comment 58 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
Report abuse
5.0 out of 5 starsA compassionate doctor confronts the HIV epidemic
By Nancy K. Oconnor on October 1, 2004
Format: Paperback
As a doctor, I rarely enjoy books about physicians because they simply don't show the reality of our lives.

Unlike the soap opera sexuality and black humor (and ridicule) in many medical best sellers, Dr. Verghese writes a the simple tale of a doctor and his patients, told with quiet compassion and an eye for the small details of human experience.

He tells of the daily fight to keep people alive. And he tells the story of how ordinary Americans confront this new disease with courage.

Too often, Southern Americans are portrayed as bigoted religious homophobes by the literati. His stories of how the close knit families confront and accept their dying sons and husbands.

And he tells of the common --but rarely discussed-- story of immigrants. This a story I see in my own family, where one person comes, and then is joined by friends and family, and soon a thriving immigrant community invigorates the small towns of middle America.

Finally, he shows the strains of practicing medicine in the context of a daily life.

Most of the reviews paint this as a book about HIV, and it is.

But it is a book about families, about culture, and especially about the life of ordinary physicians who daily confront the struggle against sickness and mortality.

I would recommend it to anyone thinking of joining the medical profession.
Comment 36 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
Report abuse

Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 starsFive Stars

Good enough to give to friends. cm

Published 7 days ago by Carol Marvos
5.0 out of 5 starsThis is one of the best book I ever read

This is one of the best book I ever read. Tells Verghese is a great story teller, who is also a doctor. Read more

Published 2 months ago by Jude Cigrand
5.0 out of 5 starsExcellent

Read this years ago the first time. Fascinating.

Published 3 months ago by Janette
3.0 out of 5 starsNot as enthralling as Cutting for Stone, but worth ...

Not as enthralling as Cutting for Stone, but worth the read if you are interested in AIDS from a doctors perspective when the epidemic first started.

Published 5 months ago by Pete Banchuin
5.0 out of 5 starsIncredible author, physician, teacher and man.

Abraham Verghese is a remarkable individual: intelligent yet compassionate physician, exceptionally gifted writer, superb teacher, and above all a deep, caring human being who is... Read more

Published 6 months ago by rtptjd
5.0 out of 5 starsFive Stars

It was good!

Published 6 months ago by JM
5.0 out of 5 starsFive Stars

One of the best memoirs written.

Published 7 months ago by C. S. Evans
5.0 out of 5 starsExcellent writing. I did my internship when verghese lived ...

Outstanding book. Excellent writing. I did my internship when verghese lived this. It is just as he describes. Thank you

Published 8 months ago by Showtime
4.0 out of 5 starsRead to gain more insight to the beginning of the HIV/AIDS epidemic

Another good book by Dr. Verghese. It explores the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the beginning with all of it's terrible misunderstandings and painful times for all infected as well as... Read more

Published 8 months ago by Pamela L Gulbrandson
4.0 out of 5 starsA thorough story of doctor and patient experiences during the ...

A thorough story of doctor and patient experiences during the 1980s early treatment of AIDS. Very honest, human and compassionate.

Published 8 months ago by adele t murphy

There's a problem loading this menu right now.

Learn more about Amazon Prime.