Citadel; by A. J. Cronin.

When I read it it perhaps was a cult and I was unaware of that - a friend I valued and discussed ideas with talked of it and I read it, and that was that. Over the years it has become clear how it was worthy in more ways than one. Apart from the intimate portrayal of the country and city that is much familiar and yet not, apart from the portrayal of conflicts of love and marriage with professional life and stress and the usual male folly of forgetting that while one earns life is passing and the loved ones may not be able to wait forever, apart from the all other good reasons to read this great book - there is also the much recognised but these days forgotten conflict of values.

Those days people often stressed over the conflict between ideals and money, and this one does not even stick to the question of ideal but even gives the practical need of the side that is treating patients who might not pay the most - namely, the oath taken and believed in by most doctors when young and starting out, at least in those days.