Neurosurgeon and Photographer Daniel Spitzer ’79 Recommends Books for the Perpetually Curious
After a fulfilling career as a neurosurgeon, Daniel Spitzer ’79 pivoted careers and now works as a photographer. His first book is out, Unique Views of Northeast Railroading: From Canada to NYC, the first of four volumes of photography in the series. With some 100 images and well over 10,000 words, it offers unique perspectives. Spitzer captured images from a two-seat airplane (which he pilots as he shoots), a boat, and even from underneath a moving train. He calls many of the landscape photos an homage to the beauty of the Northeast, with the railroad element often secondary. He notes the second volume, NYC and Environs, due out in early 2026, includes a significant number of historic and recent images of the Princeton area.
PAW asked Spitzer, a polymath who majored in biology and has explored a broad range of interests, to recommend books for the perpetually curious. He suggested these.
By Alan Weisman
Of the myriad environmental treatises which have appeared over the past few decades, I chose this one since it’s less overtly alarmist and more of a thought experiment. Contemplating humans’ outsized influences on our shared planet should be a requirement for all governmental officials, industry executives, and indeed every member of the species. Also recommended in the same vein: Dahr Jamail’s The End of Ice and Paul Greenberg’s Four Fish.
Are We Smart Enough To Know How Smart Animals Are?
By Frans de Waal
As a 10-year-old I read Desmond Morris’ The Naked Ape with preadolescent fascination — indeed, it was banned in some jurisdictions! But the book opened my eyes to an appreciation that we humans are but one species among many, not necessarily so special, and have evolved our bodies and behaviors to meet the challenges of our environment and our social framework. The late Frans de Waal examined primate behavior, emotion, and intelligence, often drawing comparison to our own, in a wide range of books dealing with conflict, cruelty, sharing, and empathy. Also recommended: Jonathan Balcombe’s What a Fish Knows.
By Theodore Schwartz
Many physicians love to write; Theodore Schwartz does so particularly eloquently. He presents neurosurgery in the context of past triumphs and failures, the present state of the art, and possible future directions, all while explaining the intricacies of the brain in an approachable manner. Importantly, he (and the authors mentioned below) never allows discussion of the “how” — no matter how fascinating the technology — to interfere with explaining the overarching goal of helping patients, all while acknowledging the difficulty we face when making life-altering decisions, often nearly instantaneously and with limited information. Also recommended: Richard Selzer’s Confessions of a Knife, William Nolen’s The Making of a Surgeon, Marc Flitter’s Judith’s Pavilion, and the volumes by Henry Marsh.
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