How We Die

Reflections on Life's Final Chapter, New Edition (National Book Award Winner)

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Winner of the National Book Award
An ALA "Best Books for Young Adults"

Attempting to demythologize the process of dying, Nuland explores how we shall die, each of us in a way that will be unique. Through particular stories of dying--of patients, and of his own family--he examines the seven most common roads to death: old age, cancer, AIDS, Alzheimer's, accidents, heart disease, and strokes, revealing the facets of death's multiplicity.

"It's impossible to read How We Die without realizing how earnestly we have avoided this most unavoidable of subjects, how we have protected ourselves by building a cultural wall of myths and lies. I don't know of any writer or scientist who has shown us the face of death as clearly, honestly and compassionately as Sherwin Nuland does here."--James Gleick
© Jerry Bauer
Sherwin B. NulandM.D., is the author of nine previous books, including Doctors: The Biography of MedicineThe Wisdom of the BodyThe Mysteries Within, Lost in America: A Journey with My Father, and The Doctors’ Plague. His book How We Die: Reflections on Life’s Final Chapter won the National Book Award and spent thirty-four weeks on the New York Times best-seller list. His writing has appeared in The New YorkerThe New RepublicThe New York TimesTime, and The New York Review of Books. Nuland was a clinical professor of surgery at Yale University, where he also teaches bioethics and medical history. He lived with his family in Connecticut. He died in 2014. View titles by Sherwin B. Nuland
  • WINNER
    ALA Best Books for Young Adults
  • WINNER | 1994
    National Book Awards

"Eloquent and uncommonly moving… Nuland writes with unsentimental passion." —Time

"Engrossing… We are in the hands of a remarkable portraitist whose cultivated thought…. quietly and informatively instructs and advises us on a subject of universal concern." —The New York Times Book Review

"Nuland's work acknowledges, with unmatched clarity, the harsh realities of how life departs… There is compassion, and often wisdom, in every page." —San Francisco Examiner

"Nuland combines the clinical eye of a physician with… emotional and philosophical reflectiveness." —Newsday

About

Winner of the National Book Award
An ALA "Best Books for Young Adults"

Attempting to demythologize the process of dying, Nuland explores how we shall die, each of us in a way that will be unique. Through particular stories of dying--of patients, and of his own family--he examines the seven most common roads to death: old age, cancer, AIDS, Alzheimer's, accidents, heart disease, and strokes, revealing the facets of death's multiplicity.

"It's impossible to read How We Die without realizing how earnestly we have avoided this most unavoidable of subjects, how we have protected ourselves by building a cultural wall of myths and lies. I don't know of any writer or scientist who has shown us the face of death as clearly, honestly and compassionately as Sherwin Nuland does here."--James Gleick

Author

© Jerry Bauer
Sherwin B. NulandM.D., is the author of nine previous books, including Doctors: The Biography of MedicineThe Wisdom of the BodyThe Mysteries Within, Lost in America: A Journey with My Father, and The Doctors’ Plague. His book How We Die: Reflections on Life’s Final Chapter won the National Book Award and spent thirty-four weeks on the New York Times best-seller list. His writing has appeared in The New YorkerThe New RepublicThe New York TimesTime, and The New York Review of Books. Nuland was a clinical professor of surgery at Yale University, where he also teaches bioethics and medical history. He lived with his family in Connecticut. He died in 2014. View titles by Sherwin B. Nuland

Awards

  • WINNER
    ALA Best Books for Young Adults
  • WINNER | 1994
    National Book Awards

Praise

"Eloquent and uncommonly moving… Nuland writes with unsentimental passion." —Time

"Engrossing… We are in the hands of a remarkable portraitist whose cultivated thought…. quietly and informatively instructs and advises us on a subject of universal concern." —The New York Times Book Review

"Nuland's work acknowledges, with unmatched clarity, the harsh realities of how life departs… There is compassion, and often wisdom, in every page." —San Francisco Examiner

"Nuland combines the clinical eye of a physician with… emotional and philosophical reflectiveness." —Newsday

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