Hot Lights, Cold Steel: Life, Death and Sleepless Nights in a Surgeon's First Years / Dr. Michael J. Collins / 320 pp.

Hot Lights and Cold Steel is the story about a Chicago construction worker who decides to go back to school and become a doctor. He ultimately excels in med school, gets matched to a residency in Orthopedic Surgery at the Mayo Clinic, and becomes Chief Resident.

But the story isn’t about that.

The story is about this unconventional and bright minded doctor in the making who wrestles with all the issues that medical students face, that newly minted doctors face, and that family men face (the author supports a family of five while completing his education).

Each chapter shows more growth and maturation in this professional’s career and making sense of it. Luckily for the reader, his insight is keen and a riot to boot! You’ll laugh out loud in several chapters, and cry in several more.

There’s the chapter on how the author meekly went into his first surgery as an observer, and left the surgery cathartic about a surgeon’s ability to heal, and to make better.

There’s also the chapter on how he battled and beat himself up for removing the cancer-ridden leg of a 17 year old girl, and how profoundly it affected him when she smiled and expressed her gratitude for saving her life.

And I’ll spare you all the fun encounters he ran into with his inebriated patients!

Our orthopedic surgeon writes his story in a way that engages and compels the reader to continue on. The ending came too soon, and had the book been three times the volume with the lessons he learned along his amazing journey, I would have tuned in just as attentively. I found this book through serendipity and wish I could retrace my steps to find other jewels that I may have missed along the way.

Bossypants/Tina Fey/275 pp.

Tina Fey is one of the best writers Saturday Night Live ever had, the producer of the hit NBC show "30 Rock", a seasoned improv actor, and my friend Katie's secret lesbian crush. (OK, it's not really a secret; Katie told her husband she had a crush on Tina from the first time she saw her on SNL.) Bossypants is Fey's funny memoir of her childhood, her first forays into improv comedy, her stint in Second City and her run on SNL, how she got her own Emmy award-winning show, and (most importantly for her) the story of the birth of her daughter. She relays some of the wisdom she received from Lorne Michaels, executive producer of SNL, and answers some of the hate-mail she's received online. She explains how the whole Sarah Palin impression thing got started, and gives us behind-the-scenes glimpses into how SNL gets put together each week. All throughout, she maintains the quirky sense of humor that has made her such a success.

Wishful Drinking/ Carrie Fisher /163 p.

"Wishful Drinking" is Carrie Fisher's memoir about growing up as the daughter of "America's Sweethearts" Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher and her subsequent battles with alcoholism, drug addiction, and bi-polar disease. The book stems from her hugely successful one woman show, and tends to take the form of quick one-liners. That sometimes disguises both her penetrating insights and the depth of her struggle to overcome mental illness. If you want long reminiscences about her days as Princess Leia or her marriage with Paul Simon, you'll be disappointed, although there are funny stories about such topics as her dad's philandering ways and having a phone intervention with Cary Grant (yes, THE Cary Grant). It's much more a look at how she sees the world she grew up and now lives in and how she ultimately survived it. Insightful, poignant, and frequently hysterical.