*Finalist for the California Book Award*
The thirteen stories in "Birds of Paradise Lost" shimmer with humor and pathos as they chronicle the anguish and joy and bravery of America's newest Americans, the troubled lives of those who fled Vietnam and remade themselves in the San Francisco Bay Area. The past--memories of war and its aftermath, of murder, arrest, re-education camps and new economic zones, of escape and shipwreck and atrocity--is ever present in these wise and compassionate stories. It plays itself out in surprising ways in the lives of people who thought they had moved beyond the nightmares of war and exodus. It comes back on TV in the form of a confession from a cannibal; it enters the Vietnamese restaurant as a Vietnam Vet with a shameful secret; it articulates itself in the peculiar tics of a man with Tourette's Syndrome who struggles to deal with a profound tragedy. "Birds of Paradise Lost" is an emotional tour de force, intricately rendering the false starts and revelations in the struggle for integration, and in so doing, the human heart.

Human history hinges on the battle to confront our most dangerous enemies - the half-dozen diseases responsible for killing almost all of mankind. The story of our medical triumphs reveals an inspiring tapestry of human achievement, but the journey was far from smooth. It is a tale replete with dramatic episodes as spellbinding as any blockbuster Hollywood movie. In The Masters of Medicine, Dr. Andrew Lam, an award-winning author and retinal surgeon, distills the long arc of medical progress down to the crucial moments that were responsible for the world’s greatest medical miracles. He brings to life heroic tales of embattled mavericks who endured ridicule and sometimes risked their own lives to conceive the incredible, life-saving cures we depend on, and often take for granted, today. Readers will discover fascinating true stories throughout history, including: Rival surgeons who killed patient after patient in their race to operate on beating hearts - and put us on the path toward the life-saving heart transplant, A quartet of Canadians who miraculously discovered insulin in a saga marred by jealousy and resentment, The discovery of penicillin, and the long-suffering doctors who gave it to the world but were robbed of the credit, The feud between two Americans in the quest for the polio vaccine, a contest that persisted long after both died and continues today, The discredited New York surgeon whose “heretical” idea to cure patients by deliberately infecting them has now inspired our next best hope to defeat cancer, The Hungarian doctor who solved the greatest mystery of maternal deaths in childbirth, only to be ostracized for his discovery. The Masters of Medicine is a fascinating chronicle of human courage, audacity, error, and luck. This riveting ode to mankind expertly highlights the battle against deaths from heart attacks, diabetes, infection, cancer, trauma, and childbirth, revealing why the past is prelude to the game-changing breakthroughs of tomorrow.

Cultural Writing. Asian American Studies. In his long-overdue first collection of essays, noted journalist and NPR commentator Andrew Lam explores his life-long struggle for identity as a Viet Kieu, or a Vietnamese national living abroad. At age eleven, Lam, the son of a South Vietnamese general, came to California on the eve of the fall of Saigon to communist forces. He traded his Vietnamese name for a more American one and immersed himself in the allure of the American Dream: something not clearly defined for him or his family. Reflecting on the meanings of the Vietnam War to the Vietnamese people themselves--particularly to those in exile--Lam picks with searing honesty at the roots of his doubleness and his parents' longing for a homeland that no longer exists.

In Saving Sight, Dr. Andrew Lam explains the intricacies of human sight and shines a light on the heroes who fought to save it, while also revealing the personal side of life as an eye surgeon - the stress and joy of a man who, on his best days, can turn darkness into light. Many remarkable life stories illuminate this autobiographical/biographical/historical work. Included are Louis Braille, Judah Folkman, Harold Ridley and many others who have enabled us to see in all kinds of unimaginable ways.