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The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, by Anne Fadiman

One of my grad school teachers said that anyone teaching bioethics should adopt Anne Fadiman’s The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down. Upon arriving at Baylor I took up her suggestion, and I have taught the National Book Critics Circle Award winner twice a year for nearly a decade. In this nonfiction page-turner, Fadiman relates the emotionally gripping drama that unfolds when two distinct cultures offer competing descriptions of the world, and the result is something along the lines of an immovable force meeting an unstoppable object.