‘It’s time to talk about dying,’ Kathryn Mannix writes. She has worked in palliative care for many years, and this book is a compendium of encounters she’s had with hospice patients and their families. It is by no means a sad book, though it aims to be a challenging one, to make us think ahead for when those times come, both in our own life and in the lives of others we care for. It is written with warmth and even humour, as we are given a sensitive and appreciative picture of the life of each person she’s supporting. Each story, while described in movingly personal terms, is wrestling with a different aspect of the existential question we all share. It is both life-affirming and humbling to realise how rich each life is, and how we can appreciate this all the more by living well, ‘with the end in mind’. As the Sunday Times reviewer writes, ‘There aren’t all that many books that change the way you see the world. This book really might. It will make you want to do a better job of loving and living.’
[We have a copy of With the End in Mind in the library.]
