Sunspots are over-implicated in scientific literature as the cause of decadally repeating phenomena. He should have included that caveat when invoking sunspots. Here’s the scoop: Barring accidents, and disclaiming by the insurance company, most of is are going to end up as drug addicts. We’ll be looking forward expectantly not to a cure for whatever terminal bug or virus or faulty organ we might contain, but for the next fix of Codeine, or OxyContin, or Morphine (for me it’s Gabapentanine, which provides blissful spinal pain relief and is, of course, highly addictive). The prospect of a remedy in the offing for what ails us isn’t nearly as significant as the supertanker of pain bearing down on us in a very narrow channel elderly existence. I have been taunting the Reaper into taking a free scythe in my direction and have now succumbed to something so predictable and banal it bores even me. ... To the dumb question “Why me?” the cosmos barely bothers to return the reply: Why not? American medicine, Being Mortal reminds us, has prepared itself for life but not for death. This is Atul Gawande’s most powerful – and moving – book.”– Malcolm Gladwell

Mortality Books - Goodreads

Lccn 2012014024 Ocr_converted abbyy-to-hocr 1.1.20 Ocr_module_version 0.0.17 Openlibrary OL25276745M Openlibrary_edition His reminders for is fellow sisters and brothers not to be self-centred or self-pitying is so well made, yes this is a trap for us - cancer by its very nature is an inward looking disease. "Self" is a very natural trap to fall into. This is, of course, nonsense. It is the selfishness of the living who are, for the moment, without pain and who want to avoid it by forestalling death at any cost. The terminal patient can be a victim of both the disease and the relatives who think their encouragement is justified by the extension of life. The medical profession will experiment endlessly, or at least as long as it is profitable, with one’s body. But it’s the family who think they own the soul, and they ain’t giving it up. Pain is an unfortunate side effect and really isn’t important in their moral calculus. An outstanding job of organizing and synthesizing knowledge in all of the important areas of research on adult mortality. By consolidating a surprisingly rich array of major research accomplishments, the volume sets the stage for rapid advances in the future." What I admire most is his perseverance to his craft. Writing really was his reason for living. The way he did his last 19 months, and this book, was about as good a goodbye as anyone could ever hope for for themselves.This book is the literary equivalent of a painting of a pile of corpses done by Lisa Frank. John Kelly works super hard to be whimsical and cutesy, and unfortunately, he succeeds far too often. As a result, his book is frequently downright silly and embarrassing. For more practical considerations than the Hitchens book, let me recommend "Being Mortal" by Dr. Atul Gawande.... Ch. 4 (17): Henry, who has observed the battle, intervenes to save Evandale from Burley, enabling him to avoid captivity. The estimates of the casualties vary, from the low of 30% to the high of 60% dead among Europe’s then inhabitants. But whether 30% or 60%, I could translate this bland statistic into something easier on the imagination: let us say my country, the Philippines, now has a population of 100 million souls (it actually has more). Then suppose it would end up having 30 MILLION dead from Covid 19. That would approximately be something like having dead family members in every household. THAT was The Great Mortality, most likely even worse.

Mortality by Christopher Hitchens | Waterstones

The last section of Mortality is made up of "fragmentary jottings", which the publisher notes "were left unfinished at the time of the author's death". One of these notes reads: "If I convert it's because it's better a believer dies than that an atheist does." He does not convert of course. He remains true to the ideas that animated his life, and to the idea of what words can do. By now you know that I’m not the deepest well in the field. I spent my twenties reading Weetzie Bat and bopping around to King Missile. I know, I should have been studying the NYTBR or listening to Ira Glass wax poetic. It was misspent youth. I get it.

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But what can I make of this book? It was an easy enough read, but the fact that we're approaching the topic from two diametrically opposed worldviews made it challenging. Is it enough that we respect one another, or give some semblance of respect? His wife Carol Blue wrote a moving afterword in which she described their 'new world', that world which lasted for nineteen months until the end. Of the day of his 'presentation', in which the tumour declared itself, she describes their transition: "We were living in two worlds. The old one, which never seemed more beautiful, had not yet vanished; and the new one, about which we knew little except to fear it, had not yet arrived." This reminds me of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's terrific book Cancer Ward, in which Time and Memory were classed as "before cancer" and "after cancer". stars really, but I gave it 5 because Christopher Hitchens wrote it whilst dying of cancer and because of the concept of cancer being another country foreign to the one that we live in. Hitchens was known as a loudmouth, and of course the vicious irony of his particular cancer does not escape him. But as I read more of his work this past month, his compassion - a fierce, knight-errant compassion - became evident. This time, on the subject of how we talk to people who are unwell, he is fighting for himself at least as much as for others: the fear, vulnerability and weariness show. "...nor do I walk around sporting a huge lapel button that says ASK ME ABOUT [STAGE FOUR METASTASIZED OESOPHEGEAL CANCER], AND ONLY ABOUT THAT" Insert disease name as applicable. If everyone who reads this book remembers that in conversations with those they don't know well, the world will be a bit more tolerable for a lot of people who already have more than enough to tolerate. His list of euphemisms was very funny too - words such as 'discomfort' used by others when asking about ones excruciating pain.