Dear Life
A Doctor's Story of Love and Loss
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Prime members: New to Audible?Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Dear Life
Buy for $20.24
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Rachel Clarke
-
By:
-
Rachel Clarke
About this listen
"Rachel Clarke's authentic narration achieves the most important thing in audio production. It allows the author's humanity to shine and her written words to be transformed into a moving listening experience...Whether end-of-life medicine is one of your interests or not, this audiobook will deepen your connection with others and your deepest self." (AudioFile Magazine)
In Dear Life, palliative care specialist Dr. Rachel Clarke recounts her professional and personal journey to understand not the end of life, but life at its end.
This program is read by the author.
Death was conspicuously absent during Rachel's medical training. Instead, her education focused entirely on learning to save lives, and was left wanting when it came to helping patients and their families face death. She came to specialize in palliative medicine because it is the one specialty in which the quality, not quantity of life truly matters.
In the same year she started to work in a hospice, Rachel was forced to face tragedy in her own life when her father was diagnosed with terminal cancer. He'd inspired her to become a doctor, and the stories he had told her as a child proved formative when it came to deciding what sort of medicine she would practice. But for all her professional exposure to dying, she remained a grieving daughter.
Dear Life follows how Rachel came to understand - as a child, as a doctor, as a human being - how best to help patients in the final stages of life, and what that might mean in practice.
A Macmillan Audio production from Thomas Dunne Books
©2020 Rachel Clarke (P)2020 Macmillan AudioListeners also enjoyed...
-
This Is Going to Hurt
- Secret Diaries of a Young Doctor
- By: Adam Kay
- Narrated by: Adam Kay
- Length: 5 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 665
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 583
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 577
Welcome to 97-hour weeks. Welcome to life and death decisions. Welcome to a constant tsunami of bodily fluids. Welcome to earning less than the hospital parking meter. Wave goodbye to your friends and relationships. Welcome to the life of a first-year doctor. Scribbled in secret after endless days, sleepless nights, and missed weekends, comedian and former medical resident Adam Kay’s This Is Going to Hurt provides a no-holds-barred account of his time on the front lines of medicine.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Awesome
- By karen on 06-15-22
By: Adam Kay
-
With the End in Mind
- Dying, Death, and Wisdom in an Age of Denial
- By: Kathryn Mannix
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Carling, Kathryn Mannix
- Length: 11 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 197
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 184
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 179
Modern medical technology is allowing us to live longer and fuller lives than ever before. But with changes in the way we understand medicine come changes in the way we understand death. Once a familiar and gentle process, death has come to be something from which we shy away, preferring to fight it desperately than to accept its inevitability. Palliative care has a long tradition in Britain, where Dr. Kathryn Mannix has practiced it for 30 years. In this book, she shares beautifully crafted stories from a lifetime of caring for the dying.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Wonderful book!
- By Randall Roth on 01-29-18
By: Kathryn Mannix
-
When Breath Becomes Air
- By: Paul Kalanithi, Abraham Verghese - foreword
- Narrated by: Sunil Malhotra, Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 5 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 29,270
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 25,697
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 25,631
At the age of thirty-six, on the verge of completing a decade’s worth of training as a neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. One day he was a doctor treating the dying, and the next he was a patient struggling to live. And just like that, the future he and his wife had imagined evaporated.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Phenomenal book!
- By A. Potter on 01-16-16
By: Paul Kalanithi, and others
-
Complications
- A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science
- By: Atul Gawande
- Narrated by: Robert Petkoff
- Length: 9 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 439
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 380
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 373
Sometimes in medicine the only way to know what is truly going on in a patient is to operate, to look inside with one's own eyes. This audio is exploratory surgery on medicine itself, laying bare a science not in its idealized form, but as it actually is - complicated, perplexing, and profoundly human. Atul Gawande offers an unflinching view from the scalpel's edge, where science is ambiguous, information is limited, the stakes are high. In dramatic and revealing stories of patients and doctors, he explores how deadly mistakes occur and why good surgeons go bad.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
FALLIBILITY, MYSTERY AND UNCERTAINTY
- By AnnH on 10-04-20
By: Atul Gawande
-
Random Acts of Medicine
- The Hidden Forces That Sway Doctors, Impact Patients, and Shape Our Health
- By: Anupam B. Jena, Christopher Worsham
- Narrated by: Anupam B. Jena, Christopher Worsham
- Length: 9 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 35
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 29
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 29
As a University of Chicago–trained economist and Harvard medical school professor and doctor, Anupam Jena is uniquely equipped to answer these questions. And as a critical care doctor at Massachusetts General who researches health care policy, Christopher Worsham confronts their impact on the hospital’s sickest patients. In this singular work of science and medicine, Jena and Worsham show us how medicine really works, and its effect on all of us.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Podcast is much better
- By R. Weilacher on 08-22-23
By: Anupam B. Jena, and others
-
Do No Harm
- Stories of Life, Death, and Brain Surgery
- By: Henry Marsh
- Narrated by: Jim Barclay
- Length: 9 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,603
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,452
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,451
With compassion and candor, leading neurosurgeon Henry Marsh reveals the fierce joy of operating, the profoundly moving triumphs, the harrowing disasters, the haunting regrets, and the moments of black humor that characterize a brain surgeon's life. If you believe that brain surgery is a precise and exquisite craft, practiced by calm and detached surgeons, this gripping, brutally honest account will make you think again.
-
2 out of 5 stars
-
Uneven
- By Scott on 06-02-15
By: Henry Marsh
-
This Is Going to Hurt
- Secret Diaries of a Young Doctor
- By: Adam Kay
- Narrated by: Adam Kay
- Length: 5 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 665
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 583
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 577
Welcome to 97-hour weeks. Welcome to life and death decisions. Welcome to a constant tsunami of bodily fluids. Welcome to earning less than the hospital parking meter. Wave goodbye to your friends and relationships. Welcome to the life of a first-year doctor. Scribbled in secret after endless days, sleepless nights, and missed weekends, comedian and former medical resident Adam Kay’s This Is Going to Hurt provides a no-holds-barred account of his time on the front lines of medicine.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Awesome
- By karen on 06-15-22
By: Adam Kay
-
With the End in Mind
- Dying, Death, and Wisdom in an Age of Denial
- By: Kathryn Mannix
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Carling, Kathryn Mannix
- Length: 11 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 197
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 184
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 179
Modern medical technology is allowing us to live longer and fuller lives than ever before. But with changes in the way we understand medicine come changes in the way we understand death. Once a familiar and gentle process, death has come to be something from which we shy away, preferring to fight it desperately than to accept its inevitability. Palliative care has a long tradition in Britain, where Dr. Kathryn Mannix has practiced it for 30 years. In this book, she shares beautifully crafted stories from a lifetime of caring for the dying.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Wonderful book!
- By Randall Roth on 01-29-18
By: Kathryn Mannix
-
When Breath Becomes Air
- By: Paul Kalanithi, Abraham Verghese - foreword
- Narrated by: Sunil Malhotra, Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 5 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 29,270
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 25,697
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 25,631
At the age of thirty-six, on the verge of completing a decade’s worth of training as a neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. One day he was a doctor treating the dying, and the next he was a patient struggling to live. And just like that, the future he and his wife had imagined evaporated.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Phenomenal book!
- By A. Potter on 01-16-16
By: Paul Kalanithi, and others
-
Complications
- A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science
- By: Atul Gawande
- Narrated by: Robert Petkoff
- Length: 9 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 439
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 380
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 373
Sometimes in medicine the only way to know what is truly going on in a patient is to operate, to look inside with one's own eyes. This audio is exploratory surgery on medicine itself, laying bare a science not in its idealized form, but as it actually is - complicated, perplexing, and profoundly human. Atul Gawande offers an unflinching view from the scalpel's edge, where science is ambiguous, information is limited, the stakes are high. In dramatic and revealing stories of patients and doctors, he explores how deadly mistakes occur and why good surgeons go bad.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
FALLIBILITY, MYSTERY AND UNCERTAINTY
- By AnnH on 10-04-20
By: Atul Gawande
-
Random Acts of Medicine
- The Hidden Forces That Sway Doctors, Impact Patients, and Shape Our Health
- By: Anupam B. Jena, Christopher Worsham
- Narrated by: Anupam B. Jena, Christopher Worsham
- Length: 9 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 35
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 29
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 29
As a University of Chicago–trained economist and Harvard medical school professor and doctor, Anupam Jena is uniquely equipped to answer these questions. And as a critical care doctor at Massachusetts General who researches health care policy, Christopher Worsham confronts their impact on the hospital’s sickest patients. In this singular work of science and medicine, Jena and Worsham show us how medicine really works, and its effect on all of us.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Podcast is much better
- By R. Weilacher on 08-22-23
By: Anupam B. Jena, and others
-
Do No Harm
- Stories of Life, Death, and Brain Surgery
- By: Henry Marsh
- Narrated by: Jim Barclay
- Length: 9 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,603
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,452
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,451
With compassion and candor, leading neurosurgeon Henry Marsh reveals the fierce joy of operating, the profoundly moving triumphs, the harrowing disasters, the haunting regrets, and the moments of black humor that characterize a brain surgeon's life. If you believe that brain surgery is a precise and exquisite craft, practiced by calm and detached surgeons, this gripping, brutally honest account will make you think again.
-
2 out of 5 stars
-
Uneven
- By Scott on 06-02-15
By: Henry Marsh
-
Being Mortal
- Medicine and What Matters in the End
- By: Atul Gawande
- Narrated by: Robert Petkoff
- Length: 9 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 13,931
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 12,054
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 12,020
In Being Mortal, best-selling 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.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
A Walk through the Valley of the Shadow
- By George on 11-02-14
By: Atul Gawande
-
What the Dead Know
- Learning About Life as a New York City Death Investigator
- By: Barbara Butcher
- Narrated by: Barbara Butcher
- Length: 9 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 499
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 469
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 469
Barbara Butcher was early in her recovery from alcoholism when she found an unexpected lifeline: a job at the Medical Examiner’s Office in New York City. The second woman ever hired for the role of Death Investigator in Manhattan, she was the first to last more than three months. The work was gritty, demanding, morbid, and sometimes dangerous—and she loved it. In What the Dead Know, she writes with the kind of New York attitude and bravado you might expect from decades in the field, investigating more than 5,500 death scenes, 680 of which were homicides.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Didn’t Want The Book To End
- By Becky Sullivan on 06-29-23
By: Barbara Butcher
-
The In-Between
- Unforgettable Encounters During Life's Final Moments
- By: Hadley Vlahos R.N.
- Narrated by: Hadley Vlahos R.N.
- Length: 7 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 3,094
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 2,939
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 2,939
Talking about death and dying is considered taboo in polite company, and even in the medical field. Our ideas about dying are confusing at best: Will our memories flash before our eyes? Regrets consume our thoughts? Does a bright light appear at the end of a tunnel? For most people, it will be a slower process, one eased with preparedness, good humor, and a bit of faith. At the forefront of changing attitudes around palliative care is hospice nurse Hadley Vlahos, who shows that end-of-life care can teach us just as much about how to live as it does about how we die.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Author's Reach is Beyond Her Grasp
- By CW on 07-26-23
-
Five Days at Memorial
- Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital
- By: Sheri Fink
- Narrated by: Kirsten Potter
- Length: 17 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 2,566
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 2,202
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 2,205
After Hurricane Katrina struck and power failed, amid rising floodwaters and heat, exhausted staff at Memorial Medical Center designated certain patients last for rescue. Months later, a doctor and two nurses were arrested and accused of injecting some of those patients with life-ending drugs.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Five Days in Hell/Years in Purgatory
- By Cynthia on 09-15-13
By: Sheri Fink
-
Undoctored
- The Story of a Medic Who Ran Out of Patients
- By: Adam Kay
- Narrated by: Adam Kay, Reverend Richard Coles
- Length: 9 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 33
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 29
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 29
This Is Going to Hurt was the publishing phenomenon of the century, read by many millions, loved by at least fifty of them, and adapted into a major TV series. But it was only part of the story. By turns hilarious, heartbreaking and humbling, Undoctored is about what happens when a doctor hangs up his scrubs, but medicine refuses to let go of him. Undoctored is Adam Kay's funniest and most moving book yet—an astonishing portrait of a life in and out of medicine, from one of Britain's finest storytellers.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
The humor mixed with medicine
- By Anonymous User on 08-18-24
By: Adam Kay
-
Every Deep-Drawn Breath
- A Critical Care Doctor on Healing, Recovery, and Transforming Medicine in the ICU
- By: Dr. Wes Ely
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner, Dr. Wes Ely
- Length: 9 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 140
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 127
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 126
Over the next ten years, 40 to 60 million people in this country will be admitted to the ICU. Most of these hospitalizations will be sudden, unexpected, and harrowing experiences that can alter patients and their families physically and emotionally, with effects that endure for years. In this rich blend of science, medical history, profoundly humane patient stories, and personal reflection, Dr. Wes Ely describes his mission to prevent patients from being inadvertently harmed by the technology that is keeping them alive.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
A clarion call in medicine
- By S. Langdon on 09-13-21
By: Dr. Wes Ely
-
Good Morning, Monster
- A Therapist Shares Five Heroic Stories of Emotional Recovery
- By: Catherine Gildiner
- Narrated by: Deborah Burgess
- Length: 13 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 3,296
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 2,864
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 2,852
In this fascinating narrative, therapist Catherine Gildiner presents five of what she calls her most heroic and memorable patients. Among them: A successful, first-generation Chinese immigrant musician suffering sexual dysfunction; a young woman whose father abandoned her at age nine with her younger siblings in an isolated cottage in the depth of winter; and a glamorous workaholic whose narcissistic, negligent mother greeted her each morning of her childhood with "Good morning, Monster". Each patient presents a mystery, one that will only be unpacked over years.
-
2 out of 5 stars
-
some things shouldn't be consumed
- By Jess on 12-28-22
-
The Year of Living Danishly
- Uncovering the Secrets of the World's Happiest Country
- By: Helen Russell
- Narrated by: Lucy Price-Lewis
- Length: 9 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 5,348
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 4,834
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 4,823
When she was suddenly given the opportunity of a new life in rural Jutland, journalist and archetypal Londoner Helen Russell discovered a startling statistic: the happiest place on earth isn't Disneyland but Denmark, a land often thought of by foreigners as consisting entirely of long, dark winters, cured herring, Lego and pastries. What is the secret to their success? Are happy Danes born or made?
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Interesting content. Unfortunate delivery.
- By Jennifer Soudagar on 11-13-15
By: Helen Russell
-
Babel
- Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution
- By: R. F. Kuang
- Narrated by: Chris Lew Kum Hoi, Billie Fulford-Brown
- Length: 21 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 4,590
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 4,075
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 4,068
1828. Robin Swift, orphaned by cholera in Canton, is brought to London by the mysterious Professor Lovell. There, he trains for years in Latin, Ancient Greek, and Chinese, all in preparation for the day he’ll enroll in Oxford University’s prestigious Royal Institute of Translation—also known as Babel. Babel is the world's center for translation and, more importantly, magic. Silver working—the art of manifesting the meaning lost in translation using enchanted silver bars—has made the British unparalleled in power, as its knowledge serves the Empire’s quest for colonization.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
The novel language lovers have been waiting for
- By LisaLee on 09-06-22
By: R. F. Kuang
-
Better
- A Surgeon's Notes on Performance
- By: Atul Gawande
- Narrated by: John Bedford Lloyd
- Length: 7 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 2,137
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,609
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,603
The struggle to perform well is universal: each one of us faces fatigue, limited resources, and imperfect abilities in whatever we do. But nowhere is this drive to do better more important than in medicine, where lives are on the line with every decision. In this book, Atul Gawande explores how doctors strive to close the gap between best intentions and best performance in the face of obstacles that sometimes seem insurmountable.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
A MUST read . . .
- By Kathy in CA on 08-11-14
By: Atul Gawande
-
The Art of Dying Well
- A Practical Guide to a Good End of Life
- By: Katy Butler
- Narrated by: Katy Butler
- Length: 7 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 166
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 148
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 145
An inspiring, informative, and practical guide to navigating end-of-life issues, by a groundbreaking expert in the field and the New York Times best-selling author of Knocking on Heaven’s Door. Katy Butler argues that we have lost touch with the “art of dying” as practiced by our ancestors, yet we still hunger for rites of passage and a sense of the sacred, especially in the important life transitions of aging and dying.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Me too
- By Clif Green on 01-04-20
By: Katy Butler
-
Teasing Secrets from the Dead
- My Investigations at America’s Most Infamous Crime Scenes
- By: Emily Craig PhD
- Narrated by: Carrington MacDuffie
- Length: 10 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 186
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 164
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 164
Emily Craig has been a witness to history, helping to seek justice for thousands of murder victims, both famous and unknown. It’s a personal story that you won’t soon forget. Emily first became intrigued by forensics work when, as a respected medical illustrator, she was called in by the local police to create a model of a murder victim’s face. Her fascination with that case led to a dramatic midlife career change: She would go back to school to become a forensic anthropologist - and one of the most respected and best-known “bone hunters” in the nation.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
A vanity project.
- By Book fiend Kel on 07-17-22
By: Emily Craig PhD
Related to this topic
-
Advice for Future Corpses (and Those Who Love Them)
- A Practical Perspective on Death and Dying
- By: Sallie Tisdale
- Narrated by: Gabra Zackman
- Length: 7 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 193
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 166
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 165
You get ready to die the way you get ready for a trip. Start by realizing you don't know the way. Listen to a few travel guides. Study the language, look at maps, gather equipment. Let yourself imagine what it will be like. Pack your bags. This book is one of those travel guides - a guide to preparing for your own death and the deaths of people close to you. The fact of death is hard to believe. Sallie Tisdale explores our fears and all the ways death and talking about death make us uncomfortable - but she also explores its intimacies and joys.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
I thought I had more time...
- By Alyssa on 09-09-19
By: Sallie Tisdale
-
Little Matches
- A Memoir of Finding Light in the Dark
- By: Maryanne O'Hara
- Narrated by: Maryanne O'Hara
- Length: 9 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 37
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 34
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 34
When their only child was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis (CF) at the age of two, Maryanne O'Hara and her husband were told that Caitlin could live a long life or be dead in a matter of months. Thirty-one years later, Caitlin lost her battle with this devastating disease following an excruciating two-year wait on the transplant list and a last-minute race to locate a pair of healthy lungs. The sudden spiral of events left Maryanne in an existential crisis, searching to find an answer to the eternal question: Why we are here?
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
I don't know who needs to read it...
- By H. Hill on 04-18-23
By: Maryanne O'Hara
-
When Breath Becomes Air
- By: Paul Kalanithi, Abraham Verghese - foreword
- Narrated by: Sunil Malhotra, Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 5 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 29,270
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 25,697
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 25,631
At the age of thirty-six, on the verge of completing a decade’s worth of training as a neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. One day he was a doctor treating the dying, and the next he was a patient struggling to live. And just like that, the future he and his wife had imagined evaporated.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Phenomenal book!
- By A. Potter on 01-16-16
By: Paul Kalanithi, and others
-
Do No Harm
- Stories of Life, Death, and Brain Surgery
- By: Henry Marsh
- Narrated by: Jim Barclay
- Length: 9 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,603
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,452
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,451
With compassion and candor, leading neurosurgeon Henry Marsh reveals the fierce joy of operating, the profoundly moving triumphs, the harrowing disasters, the haunting regrets, and the moments of black humor that characterize a brain surgeon's life. If you believe that brain surgery is a precise and exquisite craft, practiced by calm and detached surgeons, this gripping, brutally honest account will make you think again.
-
2 out of 5 stars
-
Uneven
- By Scott on 06-02-15
By: Henry Marsh
-
In Shock
- My Journey from Death to Recovery and the Redemptive Power of Hope
- By: Dr. Rana Awdish
- Narrated by: Dr. Rana Awdish, Teri Schnaubelt
- Length: 9 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 729
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 636
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 635
In Shock is a riveting first-hand account from a young critical care physician, who in the passage of a moment is transfigured into a dying patient. This transposition, coincidentally timed at the end of her medical training, instantly lays bare the vast chasm between the conventional practice of medicine and the stark reality of the prostrate patient.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Read this book!
- By CT on 11-08-17
By: Dr. Rana Awdish
-
Knocking on Heaven's Door
- The Path to a Better Way of Death
- By: Katy Butler
- Narrated by: Katy Butler
- Length: 10 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 157
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 142
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 138
Like so many of us, award-winning writer Katy Butler always assumed her aging parents would experience healthy, active retirements before dying peacefully at home. Then her father suffered a stroke that left him incapable of easily finishing a sentence or showering without assistance. Her mother was thrust into full-time caregiving, and Katy became one of the 24 million Americans who help care for aging parents. In an effort to correct a minor and non - life threatening heart arrhythmia, doctors outfitted her father with a pacemaker.
-
2 out of 5 stars
-
A better way to narrate a book about death?
- By MAUREEN on 10-21-13
By: Katy Butler
-
Advice for Future Corpses (and Those Who Love Them)
- A Practical Perspective on Death and Dying
- By: Sallie Tisdale
- Narrated by: Gabra Zackman
- Length: 7 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 193
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 166
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 165
You get ready to die the way you get ready for a trip. Start by realizing you don't know the way. Listen to a few travel guides. Study the language, look at maps, gather equipment. Let yourself imagine what it will be like. Pack your bags. This book is one of those travel guides - a guide to preparing for your own death and the deaths of people close to you. The fact of death is hard to believe. Sallie Tisdale explores our fears and all the ways death and talking about death make us uncomfortable - but she also explores its intimacies and joys.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
I thought I had more time...
- By Alyssa on 09-09-19
By: Sallie Tisdale
-
Little Matches
- A Memoir of Finding Light in the Dark
- By: Maryanne O'Hara
- Narrated by: Maryanne O'Hara
- Length: 9 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 37
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 34
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 34
When their only child was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis (CF) at the age of two, Maryanne O'Hara and her husband were told that Caitlin could live a long life or be dead in a matter of months. Thirty-one years later, Caitlin lost her battle with this devastating disease following an excruciating two-year wait on the transplant list and a last-minute race to locate a pair of healthy lungs. The sudden spiral of events left Maryanne in an existential crisis, searching to find an answer to the eternal question: Why we are here?
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
I don't know who needs to read it...
- By H. Hill on 04-18-23
By: Maryanne O'Hara
-
When Breath Becomes Air
- By: Paul Kalanithi, Abraham Verghese - foreword
- Narrated by: Sunil Malhotra, Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 5 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 29,270
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 25,697
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 25,631
At the age of thirty-six, on the verge of completing a decade’s worth of training as a neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. One day he was a doctor treating the dying, and the next he was a patient struggling to live. And just like that, the future he and his wife had imagined evaporated.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Phenomenal book!
- By A. Potter on 01-16-16
By: Paul Kalanithi, and others
-
Do No Harm
- Stories of Life, Death, and Brain Surgery
- By: Henry Marsh
- Narrated by: Jim Barclay
- Length: 9 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,603
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,452
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,451
With compassion and candor, leading neurosurgeon Henry Marsh reveals the fierce joy of operating, the profoundly moving triumphs, the harrowing disasters, the haunting regrets, and the moments of black humor that characterize a brain surgeon's life. If you believe that brain surgery is a precise and exquisite craft, practiced by calm and detached surgeons, this gripping, brutally honest account will make you think again.
-
2 out of 5 stars
-
Uneven
- By Scott on 06-02-15
By: Henry Marsh
-
In Shock
- My Journey from Death to Recovery and the Redemptive Power of Hope
- By: Dr. Rana Awdish
- Narrated by: Dr. Rana Awdish, Teri Schnaubelt
- Length: 9 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 729
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 636
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 635
In Shock is a riveting first-hand account from a young critical care physician, who in the passage of a moment is transfigured into a dying patient. This transposition, coincidentally timed at the end of her medical training, instantly lays bare the vast chasm between the conventional practice of medicine and the stark reality of the prostrate patient.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Read this book!
- By CT on 11-08-17
By: Dr. Rana Awdish
-
Knocking on Heaven's Door
- The Path to a Better Way of Death
- By: Katy Butler
- Narrated by: Katy Butler
- Length: 10 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 157
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 142
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 138
Like so many of us, award-winning writer Katy Butler always assumed her aging parents would experience healthy, active retirements before dying peacefully at home. Then her father suffered a stroke that left him incapable of easily finishing a sentence or showering without assistance. Her mother was thrust into full-time caregiving, and Katy became one of the 24 million Americans who help care for aging parents. In an effort to correct a minor and non - life threatening heart arrhythmia, doctors outfitted her father with a pacemaker.
-
2 out of 5 stars
-
A better way to narrate a book about death?
- By MAUREEN on 10-21-13
By: Katy Butler
-
Heartwood
- The Art of Living with the End in Mind
- By: Barbara Becker
- Narrated by: Gabra Zackman
- Length: 4 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 48
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 41
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 41
When her earliest childhood friend is diagnosed with a terminal illness, Becker sets off on a quest to immerse herself in what it means to be mortal. Can we live our lives more fully knowing some day we will die? With a keen eye toward that which makes life worth living, interfaith minister, mom, and perpetual seeker Barbara Becker recounts stories where life and death intersect in unexpected ways.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
The author’s compassion
- By Amazon Customer on 04-16-24
By: Barbara Becker
-
Smile
- The Story of a Face
- By: Sarah Ruhl
- Narrated by: Sarah Ruhl
- Length: 6 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 111
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 98
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 98
With a play opening on Broadway, and every reason to smile, Sarah Ruhl has just survived a high-risk pregnancy when she discovers the left side of her face is completely paralyzed. She is assured that 90 percent of Bell’s palsy patients experience a full recovery—like Ruhl’s own mother. But Sarah is in the unlucky ten percent. And for a woman, wife, mother, and artist working in theater, the paralysis and the disconnect between the interior and exterior brings significant and specific challenges.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Synkinesis: I am there
- By Elizabeth Principi on 11-04-21
By: Sarah Ruhl
-
White Hot Light
- Twenty-Five Years in Emergency Medicine
- By: Frank Huyler
- Narrated by: Gary Bennett
- Length: 6 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 50
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 45
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 44
In the late 1990s, a young physician in Albuquerque, New Mexico, published a stunning memoir of his experiences in the highly charged world of the ER. Presented in a series of powerful, poetic vignettes, The Blood of Strangers became an instant classic. Now, over two decades later, Dr. Frank Huyler delivers another dispatch from the trenches—this time from the perspective of middle age. In portraits visceral, haunting, sometimes surreal, Huyler reveals the gritty reality of medicine practiced on the razor’s edge between life and death.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Even Better than The Blood of Strangers
- By Elizabeth Darcy on 10-14-20
By: Frank Huyler
-
The 20-Month Legend
- My Baby Boy's Fight with Cancer
- By: Steve Tate
- Narrated by: Steve Tate
- Length: 5 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 35
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 32
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 32
As if juggling a life with half-a-dozen kids, including triplets, isn’t enough, Steve Tate receives the life-altering news that one of his triplets, Hayes, has been diagnosed with brain cancer. The once-star collegiate football player finds himself fighting for his son’s life. This memoir takes you through the various challenges he faced raising a family of six kids and balancing a career, all while his son battled the odds. Both Steve and his high-school sweetheart, Savanna, found hope and happiness through the example of their 20-month-old son Hayes.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Very touching story
- By Nicole on 03-16-23
By: Steve Tate
-
Healing Hearts
- A Memoir of a Female Heart Surgeon
- By: Kathy Magliato
- Narrated by: Renée Raudman
- Length: 8 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 48
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 32
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 32
Dr. Kathy Magliato is one of fewer than a dozen female heart surgeons practicing in the world today. She is also a member of an even more exclusive group - those surgeons who perform heart transplants. Healing Hearts is the story of the making of a surgeon who also calls herself a wife and mother.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Healing Hearts
- By Jean on 01-14-12
By: Kathy Magliato
-
One Doctor
- Close Calls, Cold Cases, and the Mysteries of Medicine
- By: Brendan Reilly
- Narrated by: Rob Shapiro
- Length: 15 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 2,233
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 2,030
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 2,026
An epic story told by a unique voice in American medicine, One Doctor describes life-changing experiences in the career of a distinguished physician. In riveting first-person prose, Dr. Brendan Reilly takes us to the front lines of medicine today.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Simply Brilliant
- By Jan on 06-20-14
By: Brendan Reilly
-
Critical Care
- A New Nurse Faces Death, Life, and Everything in Between
- By: Theresa Brown
- Narrated by: Coleen Marlo
- Length: 5 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 96
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 76
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 77
In her former career as an English professor, Theresa Brown had been shielded from the harsh reality of death. That all changed the day she decided to become an oncology nurse. In Critical Care, Theresa writes powerfully and honestly about her first year on the hospital floor. With great compassion and a disarming sense of humor, she shares the trials and triumphs of her patients and comes to realize that caring for a patient means much more than simply treating a disease.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Excellent all the way around!
- By Susan on 10-12-17
By: Theresa Brown
-
Forever Ours
- Real Stories of Immortality and Living from a Forensic Pathologist
- By: Janis Amatuzio
- Narrated by: Janis Amatuzio
- Length: 3 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 94
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 57
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 57
Forensic pathologist Janis Amatuzio first began recording the stories told to her by patients, police officers, and other doctors because she felt that no one spoke for the dead. She believed the real experience of death, namely the spiritual and otherworldly experiences of those near death and their loved ones, was ignored by the medical professionals, who thought of death as simply the cessation of breath. She knew there was more.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Forever Ours
- By Londa on 01-04-06
By: Janis Amatuzio
-
Marrow
- A Love Story
- By: Elizabeth Lesser
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Lesser, Sally Field
- Length: 9 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 231
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 212
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 212
A mesmerizing and courageous memoir: the story of two sisters uncovering the depth of their love through the life-and-death experience of a bone marrow transplant. Throughout her life Elizabeth Lesser has sought understanding about what it means to be true to yourself and, at the same time, truly connected to the ones you love. But when her sister, Maggie, needs a bone marrow transplant to save her life, and Lesser learns that she is the perfect match, she faces a far more immediate and complex question about what it really means to love.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
“ Love came first “
- By marie on 03-26-18
By: Elizabeth Lesser
-
The Four Things That Matter Most 10th Anniversary Edition
- A Book About Living
- By: Ira Byock MD
- Narrated by: Barry Abrams
- Length: 6 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 84
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 74
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 74
Four simple phrases - "Please forgive me", "I forgive you", "Thank you", and "I love you" - carry enormous power to mend and nurture our relationships and inner lives. These four phrases and the sentiments they convey provide a path to emotional well-being, guiding us through interpersonal difficulties to life with integrity and grace. Dr. Ira Byock, an international leader in palliative care, explains how we can practice these life-affirming words in our day-to-day lives.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
A must read
- By Light Seeker on 03-14-21
By: Ira Byock MD
-
Laughing Through the Ugly Cry
- ...and Finding Unstoppable Joy
- By: Dawn Barton
- Narrated by: Dawn Barton
- Length: 3 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 67
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 56
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 56
In this collection of honest and sometimes raw stories, Dawn throws a loving, untoned arm around listeners as she brings them along on her journey through the loss of a child, divorce, cancer, rape, the death of her only sibling, her husband's substance abuse, and finding her way back to Jesus in the middle of it all. Dawn shares her personal story to show listeners how to find happiness and purpose even in the darkest of days. A beautiful gift book, Laughing Through the Ugly Cry is a great reminder to your girlfriends that you are with them every step of the way.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
A beautiful story of Hope!
- By Cynthia K. Hutman on 07-01-24
By: Dawn Barton
-
Nothing Was the Same
- A Memoir
- By: Kay Redfield Jamison
- Narrated by: Renée Raudman
- Length: 5 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 50
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 40
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 42
Perhaps no one but Kay Redfield Jamison---who combines the acute perceptions of a psychologist with writerly elegance and passion---could bring such a delicate touch to the subject of losing a spouse to cancer. In spare and at times strikingly lyrical prose, Jamison looks back at her relationship with her husband, Richard Wyatt, a renowned scientist who battled severe dyslexia to become one of the foremost experts on schizophrenia.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Liked the story better than the narrator
- By Pamela Harvey on 07-22-11
What listeners say about Dear Life
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars
-
Story4 out of 5 stars
- Esther Larios
- 08-07-24
Honest and moving
Throughout the book I found myself sometimes laughing and other times holding back tears. Clark does a great job at articulating the different lessons about living that we can draw from death.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars
-
Story5 out of 5 stars
- Amazon Customer
- 10-13-22
Doctors
As a primary care physician I found this very inspiring. Every doctor should read this.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars
-
Story5 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 12-13-22
Meaningful and authentic
Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you so much for writing your story
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!