A must read in some suburbs

If a colorful little 5-inch-by-8-inch paperback seems to be popping up everywhere you go, there's a reason. The book, on sale in small shops of all kinds, is making inroads into several Boston suburbs as groups read and rally around what they call a life-changing story.

So-called ''one book" programs, which try to get an entire community to read and discuss a single book, have been around since the late 1990s. But what's unusual about this movement is that several towns in the area are focusing on the same book: Tracy Kidder's ''Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, A Man Who Would Cure the World."

The ''Mountains Beyond Mountains" movement started in Winchester last spring, then spread to Dover last fall. Concord and Carlisle began a similar program late last year, and Lincoln is beginning one this month. People in Lexington and Acton have also shown interest.

Farmer, who spends part of the year working as a physician at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, is one of the founders of Partners in Health, a nonprofit organization in Cambridge begun in 1987 to run a hospital in a rural area of Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. (The organization has since expanded to other poverty-stricken places, including Africa.)

The book chronicles Farmer's life and philosophy, crediting him with, among other things, establishing a system of community health care follow-up to make sure that patients continue to take their medications to fight diseases like tuberculosis and AIDS. In the process, according to the book, Farmer challenged prevailing attitudes among medical experts that diseases of poor people in poor countries are largely incurable because the people won't follow medical advice. Farmer helped change world health policies while upgrading the standard of care.

Although Farmer had help along the way, the book is essentially about how one man through his thoughts and actions has helped alleviate widespread suffering.

Kidder, who lives in western Massachusetts, suggested in an interview that his book is appealing to people because Farmer has found a way to address situations many people had concluded were beyond fixing.

''It makes you think maybe things aren't so hopeless after all," Kidder said.

''Mountains Beyond Mountains" is not just a feel-good book, though. Farmer has a detailed philosophy about what he considers unjustifiable inequalities between rich and poor nations, and he has trouble containing his anger toward those who don't help people in need.

In the book, Kidder quotes Farmer criticizing what he calls ''WLs," or white liberals, who ''think all the world's problems can be fixed without any cost to themselves."

Readers are getting the message.

''We live in such a privileged society in the United States, especially the communities that are choosing this book for community-reads," said Kate Carr, a Concord resident who is participating in the one-book program there. ''It's such a sharp contrast."

Although the book came out about a year and a half ago, it appears to be gaining momentum, at least in some areas.

In Winchester last year the program spawned panel discussions with natives of Haiti and local residents who have volunteered there, said Lynda Wills, director of the Winchester Public Library. Book Ends, an independent bookshop in Winchester, has sold 639 copies of ''Mountains Beyond Mountains" since January 2004, said Alice Lee, who works there.

Various stores in Concord had sold about 700 books by early January of this year, said Becky Dewey, a Concord resident who is helping organize the community-reads program there and is also co-owner of the Grasshopper Shop, which sells it.

Kidder, the author, was scheduled to speak in West Concord last week, and further events are planned.

Yet ''Mountains Beyond Mountains" -- the title comes from a Haitian proverb that speaks to the difficulty of solving big problems -- has inspired not just high-minded discussions, but works of charity.

Students at several schools in the area, including Middlesex School, an independent coed boarding school for grades nine through 12 in Concord, are planning to participate in the third annual Urban Walk for Haiti in Cambridge, organized by Lincoln-Sudbury students who are raising money to help build a village in Haiti. (The website is www.wfh2005.org).

The book has had an effect on some students at Middlesex, said Dan Scheibe, who teaches a religious studies course there called ''Privilege and Responsibility: Meaningful Work," which is using ''Mountains Beyond Mountains" as a text this semester.

''Farmer's attacks, his questions, they hit home, but there's something captivating about his personality, and generous about it," Scheibe said. ''There's something warm about his embrace. He's sort of like a good teacher who makes you uncomfortable and yet you know loves you all the same."

Scheibe said his students are conscious of their relatively privileged status.

''These kids are not so sheltered that they can avoid the psychic discomfort that Farmer says is appropriate to anyone who has that sort of privilege," Schiebe said. ''Farmer is helpful in providing them a way to think about it, and in some ways something to do about it."

Kidder suggested in an interview that his book offers readers a way out of indifference toward the suffering of others caused by uncertainty about what to do.

''Farmer and his crew offer you a really satisfying way -- all you have to do is contribute some money, and they'll take care of the rest," Kidder said. ''For a lot of people, that's really attractive, and it ought to be attractive."

Some participants in the community-reads programs say they hope the movement around ''Mountains Beyond Mountains" will inspire people to do more than just give money.

''I would also like people to grow in understanding of the world around them, and to make a difference in any way they can," Carr said.