The Physician, Noah Gordon [Retail: ePub/Mobi]

Book Description
Read by millions in thirty-two countries, soon to be a major motion picture, and voted “one of the ten most-beloved books of all time,” here is the first English-language digital edition of Noah Gordon’s masterwork
In eleventh-century London, a child holds the hand of his dying mother and is terrified, aware something is taking her. Orphaned and given to an itinerant barber-surgeon, Rob Cole becomes a fast-talking swindler, peddling a worthless medicine. But as he matures, his strange gift—an acute sensitivity to impending death—never leaves him, and he yearns to become a healer.
Arab madrassas are the only authentic medical schools, and he makes his perilous way to Persia. Christians are barred from Muslim schools, but claiming he is a Jew, he studies under the world’s most renowned physician, Avicenna. How the woman who is his great love struggles against her only rival—medicine—makes a riveting modern classic.
The Physician is the first book in Noah Gordon’s Dr. Robert Cole trilogy, which continues with Shaman and concludes with Matters of Choice.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal
When nine-year-old Rob Cole felt the life force slipping from his mother's hand he could not foresee that this terrifying awareness of impending death was a gift that would lead him from the familiar life of 11th-century London to small villages throughout England and finally to the medical school at Ispahan. Though apprenticed to an itinerant barber surgeon, it is the dazzling surgery of a Jewish physician trained by the legendary Persian physician Avicenna that inspires him to accept his gift and to commit his life to healing by studying at Avicenna's school. Despite the ban on Christian students, Rob goes there, disguising himself as a Jew to gain admission. Gordon has written an adventurous and inspiring tale of a quest for medical knowledge pursued in a violent world full of superstition and prejudice. Recommended. Literary Guild alternate.

Review
"An adventurous and inspiring tale of a quest for medical knowledge pursued in a violent world full of superstition and prejudice. Recommended." —Library Journal

From the Publisher
Set against the superstition and splendor of the 11th century, the engrossing story of Rob J. Cole unfolds. A penniless orphan, Rob was blessed with a gift that, in the days of witchcraft, could send a man to the stake: he had the ability to sense the chill hand of death when it settled on the living. His skill quickened with the potency of knowledge, and he knew he was born to heal and to be a physician. His quest would take him from the rough roads of Britain to the sumptuous and corrupt courts of Persia and the school of the greatest healer of his time. Disguised as a Jew, toiling as a war surgeon in the conflicts of Eastern empires, he would be helped by mighty patrons and threatened by plague and the cruel prejudice of mullahs and clerics. And always, beside the pure flame of learning there burned a fierce passion — for the fiery–eyed beauty of a woman he could never leave.

From the Inside Flap
"Populated by engaging characters, rich in incicdent, and vivid in historical detail."

THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
In the eleventh-century London, Rob Cole left poor, disease-ridden London to make his way across the land, hustling,juggling, peddling cures to the sick--and discovering the mystical ways of healing. It was on his travels that he found his own very real gift for healing--a gift that urged him on to become a doctor. So all consuming was his dream, that he made the perilous, unheard-of journey to Persia, to its Arab universities where he would undertake a transformation that would shape his destiny forever....

About the Author
Noah Gordon has won many awards, including the James Fenimore Cooper Prize; among his books are The Death Committee, Shaman, The Jerusalem Diamond, The Rabbi, The Last Jew, and Choices.


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