Dear Life

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What to expect

'A magnificent, tender book' Independent

'Her words are brimful of love, grace and kindness' Guardian

'She writes with a tender, lyrical beauty' Sunday Times

From the Sunday Times bestselling author of Your Life in My Hands comes this vibrant, tender and deeply personal memoir that finds light and love in the darkest of places.

As a specialist in palliative medicine, Dr Rachel Clarke chooses to inhabit a place many people would find too tragic to contemplate. Every day she tries to bring care and comfort to those reaching the end of their lives and to help make dying more bearable.

Rachel's training was put to the test in 2017 when her beloved GP father was diagnosed with terminal cancer. She learned that nothing - even the best palliative care - can sugar-coat the pain of losing someone you love.
And yet, she argues, in a hospice there is more of what matters in life - more love, more strength, more kindness, more joy, more tenderness, more grace, more compassion - than you could ever imagine. For if there is a difference between people who know they are dying and the rest of us, it is simply this: that the terminally ill know their time is running out, while we live as though we have all the time in the world.

Dear Life is a book about the vital importance of human connection, by the doctor we would all want by our sides at a time of crisis. It is a love letter - to a father, to a profession, to life itself.

Critics Review

  • This is a wonderful book. Rachel takes the worst life can throw at us and shows us the beauty in it

  • What a remarkable book this is; tender, funny, brave, heartfelt, radiant with love and life. It sings with joy and kindness

  • A truly wonderful book. Read it

  • A truly beautiful book about death and life and the price of love. Told by a doctor, with compassion and wisdom. I cried, but they were warm, comforting tears. It made me think about stuff I fear in a new and better way

  • Moving, thought-provoking and so very important. I’m immeasurably grateful to have read it, and it will stay with me. In death, we learn about life

  • A touching and profound meditation on what it means to be human . . . it is a remarkable book

    Guardian

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