Dear Life: A Doctor's Story of Love and Loss

After seeing positive newspaper reviews for this book I decided to buy it for me, and I couldn't put it down. I read it cover to cover in 24 hours, then did it again.The book mainly concerns real life and death in an NHS hospice, and the doctor who dedicated her career to caring for the patients. You may think it it not a rich seam of entertainment as I did, but entertainment is not its purpose, this is one of those rare books that uplift and inspire the reader.Buy it, read it - Twice. Then pass it on. Recommended

An amazing uplifting joyous book from an author who sounds to be to be an amazing doctor. One her father whose own dying is part of the story must have been inordinately proud.Have experienced my own mother’s death from cancer in a wonderful hospice this book spoke to me, of the care, love and life at the end of life.This is a book that everyone should read and I believe will provide a great deal of support for anyone facing loss and that is all of us one day.

This was an easy read and had it's charms as a memoir. However, it being written by an expert in palliative care, I had hoped that it might give a much greater insight into what one might be faced with when caring for a dying loved-one. Useful information was scant. There were anecdotes from caring for actual patients and these were interesting but they did not form the lion-share of the book.

What a read!! Utterly beautiful.Dr Clarke writes with such humanity and joy for life even as life in front of her is ebbing away. Her personal and professional travel through the stories in her world of medicine and then palliative care is so uplifting and strangely comforts me as I reflect my onward journey with elderly parents and possible health issues that may affect my family and friends.The book also helps to begin to dispel the myth of dying and helps to ease the fears of worry and anxiety that can occupy terminally ill patients. Dr Clarke reassures one patient who is having a panic attack when he thinks he is dying in that moment with such calm kindness and honesty that I am thankful that such loving people exist in our NHS. She also honours the work of the palliative nurses she works with by showing their simple actions towards the dying that will melt your heart.I could not put this book down over 48 hours until I had finished it and I smiled with joy and then cried at the wonderful retellings of how people at the end of their lives celebrated the joys that make life worth living with such dignity and empowerment. A book with a message that will stay with me for a long time until one day I may share the same love, kindness and joy with someone I love at the end of their life. What an honour!

Really not written for a wider audience. As an ethnic minority British person you really sense snobbery on how some of it is written. I didn’t finish it.