Dracula

Recommended by David Scadden, Gerald and Darlene Jordan Professor of Medicine

I study the blood so it has to be Bram Stoker’s “Dracula.” It may not be high art, but it captures the tensions of science and myth, morality and bestiality, the familiar and the foreign with page-turning suspense. Blood embodying both regenerative life and corrupting disease is not just a literary conceit in either the book or, as far as I can tell, in life; it rings true — chillingly true — and is worth thinking about.