Winner 1994 National Book Award.
Winner American Library Association Best Books for Young Adults
An international bestseller, Sherwin B. Nuland’s How We Die has come to be regarded as the definitive book about the most universal human concern: death. The ebook edition includes the author's afterword to the paperback edition examining the current state of health care, and our relationship with life as it approaches its end. Nuland’s masterful How We Die has become a modern classic on how to take control of our own final days.
“Powerfully eloquent.... How We Die is a relentlessly frank and graphic description.... surprisingly absorbing.” — The New York Times; “Unforgettable.” — Kirkus Reviews; “Thought provoking and humane.” — Booklist; “The story comes from a sensitive observer...who has seen much, taken much thought, and written it all down with a superior gift for descriptive narrative.” — Washington Post Book World; “You cannot read How We Die without becoming aware of your body, if only...to ask it impermissible questions. You put the book down merely to pick it up again.” — The New Yorker; “Straight-forward, unsparing, yet deeply human.” — Anna Quindlen, The New York Times; “Rarer still, we come across an author with both style and substance, who gives us information that is a pleasure to read and from which we have much to learn—or relearn. When that material is combined with the wisdom of experience, we rejoice in the art and craft of medicine at its finest. Nuland’s book will occupy a permanent place on the short shelf of such classics. Buy it, read it, recommend it to your patients.” — Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA); “Profoundly poignant.” — People; “Engrossing.... We are in the hands of a remarkable portraitist.” — The New York Times Book Review; “Engrossing.... Hugely informative.” — Times Literary Supplement; “Eloquent and uncommonly moving reflections.... Nuland writes with unsentimental passion. He has the rare ability to explain the abstruse in language that can be both meticulously exact and wondrously evocative.” — Time; “Any reader who is still not convinced of his own mortality...is bound to be altered in some profound way by this book.... This is knowledge we all should have.” — USA Today; “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; “A shattering book: filled with pain, yet brimming with humanity. 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 the face of death as clearly, honestly, and compassionately as Sherwin Nuland does here.” — James Gleick; “Enthralling. It’s an original idea to look at death like this as if it were just another part of life, which indeed it is. The book ought to be frightening but it isn’t because Sherwin Nuland manages to make fascinating what is most terrifying and therefore entirely distracts us from the “I don’t want to know, I don’t want to think about it” attitude. Curiously, as we read, we do want to know, and instead of being shocked we become more and more interested.” — Ruth Rendell; (see http://www.writersreps.com/how-we-die for stunning testimonials to the book from Oliver Sacks MD, Rabbi Harold S. Kushner, Doris Lessing, Jeremiah A. Barondess MD, James P. Nolan MD, and Richard Selzer MD)
Winner American Library Association Best Books for Young Adults
An international bestseller, Sherwin B. Nuland’s How We Die has come to be regarded as the definitive book about the most universal human concern: death. The ebook edition includes the author's afterword to the paperback edition examining the current state of health care, and our relationship with life as it approaches its end. Nuland’s masterful How We Die has become a modern classic on how to take control of our own final days.
“Powerfully eloquent.... How We Die is a relentlessly frank and graphic description.... surprisingly absorbing.” — The New York Times; “Unforgettable.” — Kirkus Reviews; “Thought provoking and humane.” — Booklist; “The story comes from a sensitive observer...who has seen much, taken much thought, and written it all down with a superior gift for descriptive narrative.” — Washington Post Book World; “You cannot read How We Die without becoming aware of your body, if only...to ask it impermissible questions. You put the book down merely to pick it up again.” — The New Yorker; “Straight-forward, unsparing, yet deeply human.” — Anna Quindlen, The New York Times; “Rarer still, we come across an author with both style and substance, who gives us information that is a pleasure to read and from which we have much to learn—or relearn. When that material is combined with the wisdom of experience, we rejoice in the art and craft of medicine at its finest. Nuland’s book will occupy a permanent place on the short shelf of such classics. Buy it, read it, recommend it to your patients.” — Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA); “Profoundly poignant.” — People; “Engrossing.... We are in the hands of a remarkable portraitist.” — The New York Times Book Review; “Engrossing.... Hugely informative.” — Times Literary Supplement; “Eloquent and uncommonly moving reflections.... Nuland writes with unsentimental passion. He has the rare ability to explain the abstruse in language that can be both meticulously exact and wondrously evocative.” — Time; “Any reader who is still not convinced of his own mortality...is bound to be altered in some profound way by this book.... This is knowledge we all should have.” — USA Today; “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; “A shattering book: filled with pain, yet brimming with humanity. 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 the face of death as clearly, honestly, and compassionately as Sherwin Nuland does here.” — James Gleick; “Enthralling. It’s an original idea to look at death like this as if it were just another part of life, which indeed it is. The book ought to be frightening but it isn’t because Sherwin Nuland manages to make fascinating what is most terrifying and therefore entirely distracts us from the “I don’t want to know, I don’t want to think about it” attitude. Curiously, as we read, we do want to know, and instead of being shocked we become more and more interested.” — Ruth Rendell; (see http://www.writersreps.com/how-we-die for stunning testimonials to the book from Oliver Sacks MD, Rabbi Harold S. Kushner, Doris Lessing, Jeremiah A. Barondess MD, James P. Nolan MD, and Richard Selzer MD)
