Hey Y'all,
I recently read a book that I just love, love, love! It's called Twelve Breaths a Minute and it's an anthology of essays about end-of-life issues. The book was brought to my attention by my friend, Dr. Kate, who contributed a piece to the book and-- in addition to being a pediatric surgeon-- is a damn fine writer. You might think end-of-life essays are a downer and, to be honest, a lot of these pieces have their troubling moments. But that'd didn't put me off, it pulled me in-- the frank look at how things are. I love the honesty and guts of this book. In the West, far too often we deny the facts of death and the circumstances that surround end-of-life. This book tackles those facts and circumstances head on. I was so swept away by the writing that I wrote a review which is supposed to show up in the Texas Observer soon. So I am not going to go further into my thoughts here, not yet anyway. But I will tell you something so great:
Dr. Kate's essay was selected to be excerpted at the NPR website! It just posted here and you can read for yourself how outstanding her work is.
Congratulations Kate, MD! Nicely done.
Y'all-- get this book. It is such an eye-opening and so beautifully written by the essayists and arranged by editor Lee Gutkind.
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