SKU: 49331859991

Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End

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Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the EndIn Being Mortal, bestselling author Atul Gawande tackles the hardest challenge of his profession: how medicine can not only improve life but also the process of its ending Medicine has triumphed in modern times, transforming birth, injury, and infectious disease from harrowing to manageable. But in the inevitable condition of aging and death, the goals of medicine seem too frequently to run counter to the interest of the human spirit. Nursing homes,


In Being Mortal, bestselling author Atul Gawande tackles the hardest challenge of his profession: how medicine can not only improve life but also the process of its ending

Medicine has triumphed in modern times, transforming birth, injury, and infectious disease from harrowing to manageable. But in the inevitable condition of aging and death, the goals of medicine seem too frequently to run counter to the interest of the human spirit. Nursing homes, preoccupied with safety, pin patients into railed beds and wheelchairs. Hospitals isolate the dying, checking for vital signs long after the goals of cure have become moot. Doctors, committed to extending life, continue to carry out devastating procedures that in the end extend suffering.

Gawande, a practicing surgeon, addresses his profession's ultimate limitation, arguing that quality of life is the desired goal for patients and families. Gawande offers examples of freer, more socially fulfilling models for assisting the infirm and dependent elderly, and he explores the varieties of hospice care to demonstrate that a person's last weeks or months may be rich and dignified.

Full of eye-opening research and riveting storytelling, Being Mortal asserts that medicine can comfort and enhance our experience even to the end, providing not only a good life but also a good end.



Binding Type: Hardcover
Publisher: Metropolitan Books
Published: 10/07/2014
ISBN: 9780805095159
Pages: 282
Weight: 0.85lbs
Size: 8.30h x 5.80w x 1.20d
Award: New England Book Award - Winner
Award: L.A. Times Book Prize - Finalist
Award: Books for a Better Life - Winner
Award: Indies Choice Book Awards - Winner

Review Citations: Library Journal Prepub Alert 05/15/2014 pg. 50
Kirkus Reviews 08/01/2014
Kirkus Reviews Fall Preview 08/15/2014 pg. 29
Booklist 10/01/2014 pg. 8
Shelf Awareness 10/10/2014
New York Times Book Review 11/16/2014 pg. 26
New York Times Book Review 11/09/2014 pg. 14
NY Times Notable Bks of Year 12/07/2014 pg. 27
Shelf Awareness 12/12/2014
Christian Century 12/10/2014 pg. 25
Booklist Editors Choice/Adult 01/01/2015 pg. 8
New York Review of Books 01/08/2015 pg. 20
BookPage 10/01/2014
Christian Century 02/18/2015 pg. 32
New York Times Book Review 05/17/2015 pg. 28
Choice 06/01/2015
Library Journal 05/15/2014
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SKU: 49331859991

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G. Hodnett
Lexington, US
★★★★★ 3
Your milage will vary
Format: Paperback
Some great ideas in this story but it didn't really work for me. But I know others have loved it..
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Reviewed in the United States on November 14, 2025
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Joanne Hale
Charlottesville, US
★★★★★ 2
The hype it did not live up to
Format: Paperback
I guess I expected more. I found it kind of boring and un inspiring. I enjoyed the food twist and even the characters, but it was very underwhelming. and I'm sorry about this review, because I really really wanted to love it.
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Reviewed in the United States on March 30, 2025
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John J. Shea
Port Orchard, US
★★★★★ 5
A thoroughly-researched, thoughtful, and nuanced work about the 1692 Salem withcraft panic.
Format: Paperback
This graphic novel recounts the 1692 Salem (Massachusetts) witchcraft panic that engulfed Salem, Salem Village (now Danvers), and adjacent communities. About two dozen men and women were convicted and hanged, one was pressed to death (tortured) to try to force him to acknowledge the Court’s authority. That man was Giles Corey, aged 80. The book focuses on him, but it covers others among the accused and executed as well as on the judges, politicians, and other involved. (No so much on the accusers and their motives.). The narrative plays out chronologically with interstitial vignettes in which 19th Century literary figures Nathaniel Hawthorne and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wander around Salem during the 1800s discussing the trials and their legacy. (Hawthorne lived in Salem for a time and was a descendant or the Court of Oyer and Terminer Judge Hathorne.). The work concludes with a chapter, More Wonders of the Invisible World, that follows how Salem developed economically up to the present day in which witchcraft-related Halloween tourism turns Salem town into arguably the least attractive “tourist attraction” on Cape Ann. (Do not skip this chapter, it is engrossing.) An extensive series of endnotes provide scholarly references and background information. The artwork veers back and forth between caricatures (the 17th century events) and realism (19th century and onwards). In both cases the line art is exquisite. The text includes quotes from transcripts of the trials and other contemporary documents as well as fictional dialog. Wickey worked on this book for more than a decade, and it shows in his thorough scholarship. This is, in all seriousness, Pulitzer/Eisner-level work. Wickey was born in Beverly and resides on Cape Ann. Most of us born and raised on the “North Shore” learn about the Salem witchcraft panic in high school -often as a cautionary tale about politics, spectral evidence, and what we would today call “lawfare.” I thought I knew a fair amount about the 1692 panic, but I learned something new with nearly every other page. I was especially glad to see Wickey cover now-debunked ergot-poisoning theory and that he dismissed the vile slander that some among the convicted and executed were actually witches. There’s nothing really “missing” from the book, though one wishes one could learn more about the fates of the accusers other than Ann Putnam. That their motives appear to have been “sport” is bone-chilling fully three centuries later. Read her "apology" years later and try not to think, "psychopath." At 500 plus pages, it's too long to read at one setting, but it is a pleasure to read at shorter intervals.
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Reviewed in the United States on December 26, 2025
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Salvatore P. Vasta
Boise, US
★★★★★ 5
Masterpiece
Format: Kindle
It has been said that any work of literature should be gauged upon how much the work makes the reader think. Ben Wickey has certainly achieved this - in spades - as one of the “civilised” world’s most frightening episodes is revisited with respect and thoughtfulness on the human condition.
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Reviewed in the United States on January 12, 2026
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Jessica Richart
Belleville, US
★★★★★ 5
Books
Format: Paperback
I bought this book for my husband as a Christmas present and he enjoyed the book!
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Reviewed in the United States on February 17, 2026

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