Walker Percy Literary Society

In his latest book, “A Dance with Dragons,” George R.R. Martin writes, “A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies… The man who never reads lives only one.” In this spirit and given the centrality of understanding varied perspectives to medicine, the Walker Percy Literary Society operates as a book club open to the entire CUMC community, aiming to encourage a culture of literary engagement and thereby nurture our development as care providers and people.

So far this year, club participants have read “The God of Small Things” by Arundhati Roy and “This Is How You Lose Her” by Junot Díaz. In late April, the group planned to discuss “This Is How You Die,” edited by Ryan North, Matthew Bennardo, and David Malki. Works by Anton Chekhov, Siddhartha Mukherjee, and Samuel Shem have been shortlisted for future meetings and will be chosen, as always, by member input.

We are thrilled that the Walker Percy Literary Society has been revived, and we look forward to sharing good books, good discussion, and good times with the CUMC community. Anyone interested in participating can email Pranav Nanda at pn2260@columbia.edu or Manish Mehta at mpm2172@columbia.edu.

— Manish Mehta’17 and Pranav Nanda’17