October 6, 2011 Ann Patchett’s novel, State of Wonder is one of six finalists for the 2011 Wellcome Trust Book Prize. The award, which will be announced at a ceremony in London on November 9, honors a literary work about health, illness, or medicine. In addition to State of Wonder, finalists this year include two works of nonfiction and three novels. The award carries a prize of £25,000 (about $40,000).

September 30, 2011 Abraham Verghese is becoming well known for his belief in the importance of the kind of bedside examinations that doctors, in his view, too often skip. For Verghese–the author of the novel Cutting for Stone, which has been on The New York Times bestseller list for eighty-seven weeks–physicians who order high-tech diagnostic tests without ever conducting a physical exam are guilty of reducing human beings to “iPatients.”