How We Die should be in every physicians and health care professionals library. The book is very readable and thoughtfully written. This book eases the fear of dying and discusses the many ways in how we die. Dr. Nuland approaches this difficult subject with great compassion and honesty.

The author describes in gret detail his struggles and satisfactions working with AIDS patients in New York. As he continues his work he finds need to look into his own background and discovers the details of his father's death when he was a child. A heartwarming portrayal of how life experiences often unrecognized motivate us in our choice of profession and the way we carry out our responsibilities. A heart warming book. Morris Wessel, M.D.

In an earlier book, Dr. Nuland told us How We Die. That book gave me some understand and comfort following my father's death. In this beautifully-written and heart-wrenching memoir, Dr. Nuland tries to come to terms with his own father's death and in doing so, managed to exorcise some demons.
This is a very brave memoir in that the author spares no one, including himself. It is at once brutally honest (sometimes so much so, that I had to stop reading) and incisive. His prose style--unusual for a doctor--is lyrical and succinct. He tells his story from a uniquely Jewish perspective (naturally) and so I wondered if readers with other religious affiliations would respond in the same way. Perhaps it doesn't matter. The book is a winner and I am enriched from having read it.

Whoa, this is a hard one. Lost in America, written by the gifted Nuland, is an ode to his father, a work of self-therapy for himself, a gift to his readers, and an offering to anyone looking for resolution and understanding of a difficult family situation.
Lost in America begins with the author admitting to coming under the grips of debilitating depression, and the writing of this book seems to have been his way of fighting out of that despair, of coming to terms with some of its causes, and of trying to explain all that went wrong with his father's life as a Jewish immigrant in America - and how those failures impacted Sherwin Nuland. The turning point comes with Nuland's discovery that his father suffered the mental and neurological effects of late-stage syphilis - and with his acceptance that happiness for him would be impossible.
Heartbreaking and oh, so beautifully written. But also difficult (on an emotional level) to read; you may find yourself putting it aside for a few days before wanting to continue. But persevere and read to the end. You won't regret it.

I love this book. Dr. Nuland takes you on a journey with him to his past and his family, in particular his relationship with his father. He tells his story in a manner that is simple, clear, yet deeply moving. His characters are real people who I really cared about while I was reading. I've read his previous books and was very impressed; this one is even better. His description of his severe depression was gripping. How I wish I could describe mine as well. Thank you, Dr. Nuland for a heart-warming book.

Humans are probably the only animals capable of understanding their mortality and envisioning the day of their death. Sherwin B. Nuland shows, however, that while we conceptualize our eventual demise, most people have unrealistic expectations of their death. Misconceptions abound. The expectation of a noble death with loved ones gathered, final farewells, and then eternal slumber forms a common though inaccurate mental image of what many people look forward to in their final moments.

There are several themes that permeate Nuland's books. One theme is that death, like birth, is a messy process. Though we may wish for the noble death, more likely we will die slowly from a lack of oxygen in the brain. This, in turn, will result from a failing heart, lungs, or blood vessels. Death does not come easy, and although the final moment is sometime serene and tranquil, months or weeks of painful physical degeneration often precedes it.

The second theme in Nuland's book is that death is not only inevitable, it is necessary. While life should be fought for as long as possible, we should all realize that ultimately the battle will be lost. We will die. Nuland takes a dim view of heroic attempts to extend life beyond the point where the body has simply failed and death becomes not only inevitable, but also the proper way for nature to renew herself. Nature uses death to clear the way for new generations, and just as we cannot experience the green buds of spring unless the leaves from last season fall to the ground, the very nature of life demands that when death becomes inevitable we exit the stage for the next generation.

Nuland's third point is that the measure of a life is not found so much in how we die, but in how we live and how we are remembered. Few of us can control the way in which we die. For some of us it will be quick, for others death will linger and the process will be slow and painful. Some will find humiliation in the loss of bodily functions or mental facilities. However it comes to anyone of us, death is just a part of our lives and the real meaning in death is in the life remembered.

Chapters 1 and 2 focus on the heart, how and why it fails, and what are the consequences in terms of how death is precipitated. These chapters include some personal stories, but are mostly factual in nature. They make fascinating reading for anyone interested in how the body works, as well as those interested in death itself.

Chapter 3 is one of the most poignant and describes the author's personal experiences in the life and death of his Grandmother who raised him after his parents died when he was eleven. Nuland is a medical doctor, and he describes the deaths of many people in his book, including the death of his Grandmother and his brother. All these descriptions are stark. There is no attempt to cover up the messiness of death, yet the stories are told with such deep compassion and understanding of the human condition and suffering that they bring a deep upwelling in the soul.

Chapter 4 basically outlines Nuland's view that "Among living creatures, to die and leave the stage is the way of nature - old age is the preparation for departure, the gradual easing out of life that makes its ending more palatable not only for the elderly but for those also to whom they leave the world in trust."

Chapter 5 describes Alzheimer's disease, and is one of the most interesting chapters in the book. This book includes some of the history of Alzheimer's disease, how the disease manifests itself, and how it kills. Like many other topics in his book, Nuland illustrates the subject by describing the process of degeneration and death due to this disease through his personal experiences with individuals he knew.

The sixth chapter, titled "Murder and Scerenity," was difficult for me. It contains a vivid description of the death of a little girl by a knife-wielding maniac. The subject of the chapter is how the body produces chemicals that place it in a type of trance when under tremendous stress. The story of little Katie is very poignant. I hardly ever cry, but I did as I read of the way she died. Interestingly, though, I think that understanding the physiology described in this chapter can be a source of solace even for those who have lost loved ones through violent tragedy.

Chapter 7 discusses suicide and euthanasia. Nuland seems to take a dim view of suicide as promoted by some organizations, but he seems to hold open the possibility of doctors taking a more active roll in the final moments of death as patients ask for help in the process. This chapter brought some personal reflection to me, since I'm from Oregon. I voted with the majority of my fellow citizens to allow doctors to help their patients end their suffering (Oregon's law has abundant safeguards and cannot result in euthanasia or death for monetary relief). Ultimately, though, our voices could be rejected. Interestingly, Gordon Smith, a Senator from Oregon, has proven fundamental in overriding the Oregon voters on this issue.

Chapters 8 and 9 review the story of aids and how that disease kills it victims, while chapters 10 and 11 describe death by cancer. Chapter 12 summarizes, and leaves the reader contemplating the fact that it's all but certain we will each die by one or more of the processes described in Nuland's book. How we die, and how we will be remembered, however, are entirely up to each of us as individuals

What actually happens during "clinical death"? Why do we age, and what happens to the body? This National Book Award winner Particularly recommended for anyone in a position to explain these difficult processes to others. This award-winning account describes in frank yet compassionate detail just what most of us are likely to face when the time comes, Sherwin B. Nuland's How We Die combines erudition and eloquence in a refreshingly unsentimental look at the processes of death. A distinguished surgeon and gifted writer, Nuland illuminates the mechanisms of cancer, heart attack, AIDS, and Alzheimer's disease with precision and compassionate awareness.

Why read such a book? Taking away the fear of the unknown can bring courage and peace in the face of a difficult time. This book presents unpleasant facts in simple language that anyone can understand.

Chapters cover different types of death, making clear the physiological changes and medical choices that go along with each one. It addresses both medical and emotional realities of common conditions such as cancer, heart disease, AIDS, Alzheimer's, severe trauma, and just plain wearing out. (Be prepared to cry, since reading this book may make you experience feelings associated with people you love.)

What makes this book such compelling reading is that Nuland brings to this subject all of the depth and breadth of his background AND his deep concern for the human condition. His long career at a high-powered academic medical center (Yale), his knowledge of the history of medicine, of literature and philosophy, and his own personal losses are all woven into his thesis. He is thus highly convincing when he criticizes physicians for becoming seduced by the intellectual challenge of solving "The Riddle" and making recommendations not in the best interests of the patient/family.

But the power of the book is in its intensely personal depiction of these events and in the lessons which Nuland draws from his experiences. The message is twofold: very few will "die with dignity" so that (1) it behooves us to lead a productive LIFE of dignity, (2) physicians, patients, and families should behave appropriately to allow nature to take its course instead of treating death as the enemy to be staved off at any cost. Only then will it be possible for us to die in the "best" possible way--in relative comfort, in the company of those we love/who love us.

A "must read" for those of us in the baby-boomer generation who, unfortunately, are going to have to deal with a lot of what's covered in this book over the remainder of our lives.

I'm not sure what made me read "How We Die". It just appeared on my reader's radar a couple of years ago. First let me say that what I came away with was a profound sense of the awesomeness of human life and death, especially the awesomeness of physical death. The author explains in careful and graphic detail what happens to the body's systems under various scenarios that eventually result in the inevitable death of the body. Strangely, this information was more embracing and empowering than depressing and sad. Somehow, the knowledge of WHAT really happens when we die frees me to move on to HOW I feel about it and how I can deal with it. For me, the book stripped much of the power from various traditional, political, religous, legal, societal, and familial interpretations of this event, and allowed me to start to think it through for myself. Long after I finished the book, I found myself reflecting on the information presented by the author, and more importantly, digging deeply into my own psyche and soul to uncover what I really feel and believe. When my father died last year, I felt able to observe and participate in the process with less fear and dread, and more of a sense of power than if I had never read the book. While the events and circumstance of his illness and eventual death were extremely sad and difficult, I credit this book (and the mental and emotional effort I put into reading and reflecting on it) with allowing me to accept the fact that my father was going to die, and to deal with everything that had to be dealt with. Thank you, Dr. Nuland.

I was aware that in addition to being a master painter DaVinci was also a visionary scientist with ideas far ahead of his time, but I had no idea that he had made such remarkable leaps forward in the investigation of anatomy. This is a very interesting side of Leonardo that I'm glad to have learned more about. Even so, I don't know if it deserves to degree of focus this biography gives it.

This work gives a functional overview of the major events of DaVinci's life and dabbles a bit in the interpretation of a few of his more famous works of art. But it is first and foremost a biography of DaVinci the anatomist, to the detriment (it seems to me) of DaVinci the artist and DaVinci the mechanical engineer.

Beyond that, two things bugged me about this book. First, the author is a bit preoccupied with the idea of Leonardo's homosexuality and uses that as a tool to pschoanalyze many areas of his life. The speculations on his early childhood are almost exclusively retrospections guessed at by looking backward from an adult homosexual male.

The second thing that bothered me was the author's treatment of DaVinci's religious beliefs. I recognize that religion may not have been a central focus in DaVinci's life, but he does seem to have had a definite belief in God, whearas Nuland more or less apologizes for that fact whenever he is forced to bring it up and it seems that he would like to simply dismiss it as one of the areas in which DaVinci was a product of his times.

Heard the taped version of LEONARDO DA VINCI by Sherwin
Nuland, a concise but informative look at the man who was a
successful painter, architect, engineer, philosopher, mathematician, and scientist . . . how he accomplished all he did has always amazed me! . . . this book does a good job of helping to explain the basis behind Da Vinci's insatiable curiosity . . . the author, a surgeon and author, also helps explain his subject's longtime fascination with anatomy--first as the basis for his painting and then as the key component in his aim to systematize all knowledge of nature.

The focus of this informative biography is da Vinci the anatomist, not Leonardo the painter or proto-technologist. Indeed, this biography truly comes alive only when Nuland, a surgeon and author, describes the advances Leonardo achieved in his study of the body. In my opinion, Nuland's touch isn't so sure in other areas of Leonardo's achievement and there are, in fact, patches that sound like a product of rushed and unedited dictation. Still, I'd rate this as a superior introduction to a scientist centuries ahead of his time. This fine book, by the way, definitely enriched my experience at the da Vinci exhibit that is now showing at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Dr. Nuland seems to have an amazing command of the form and function of much of the body. Unfortunately, his decriptions are often marred by overly verbose language that detracts from the topic at hand. For example: "As alarming and jarring as the page was, it was at the same time stangely exhilarating. At once supplicating and commanding, part outcry for help and part call to arms, the clamorous message spoke to me like some suddenly recalled ancestral imperitive." The book continues on like this for some time. It takes almost an entire page for Dr. Nuland to get from the front door of the hospital to the emergency room. This might not be so bad if it did not interrupt (read: stop cold) the flow of a quite riveting medical case study. It seems that much of this book has suffered from the overuse of a thesaurus. "Clamorous"?, "ancestral imperitive"?, give me a break.

Unlike another reviewer, I did not at all mind the long descriptions without illustrations of many of the body's vital systems. Since this is not intended to be an anatomy textbook, the fact that you cannot fully understand how these systems work had no bearing upon the point Dr. Nuland is trying to get across.

Overall, an interesting book, but severly hurt by his writing style. Perhaps another edition of this book can be run past a good editor.

"No matter how similar our parts to those of other animals, there are to be found within them some characteristics that make us uniquely human." (from the Introduction).
The human body.
We all have one. If you're reading this, you have one! What could be more interesting than finding out more about it? How it works? How it fails us at times? And "why" it does both?
Well, Dr. Nuland is an expert in this field, and his book about the human body is just fantastic, I was thoroughly enthralled by it, from cover to cover. Just when the textbook-style facts verged on becoming tedious, Nuland would sensitively lace (suture?) everything together with a true-to-life surgical story that not only drove home the facts, but kept me in suspense... flipping the pages like it was a novel.
One of my specialties is being critical, and yet I cannot find a bad thing to say about this book.
Did you know that every time your heart beats, it is forcing blood into a network of arteries, veins, and capillaries that extend for tens of thousands of miles within your body? That's right... TENS of thousands! ...Of miles! Think about it. Did you know that if your folded-up brain were spread out, it would cover two-and-a-half square feet, and within this space are ten billion neurons and sixty trillion synapse connections? (Hey Mr. Gates... Pentium-Shmentium!)
Did you know that the human skin contains 2.5 million sweat glands?
Neither did I. But with this book you learn so much. Like, for instance, a sure-fire way to memorize the ten chemicals that make up the human body.
But "How We Live" is not just some sort of compendium of biological facts, it is an exciting journey through real life situations that we can all relate to or at least sympathize with. Some of the case histories here are just incredible.
Nuland covers everything from theories on the human spirit and the will to live, basic cell division, the reproductive act and system, the nerves and how they work, DNA and genetic structure, the heart, the digestive system, the brain, and how we think.
Did it bug me that Nuland (an agnostic) is not a creationist?
Sort of.
I am so 100% convinced that a real "living" God designed all that Nuland talks about in this book. So it sometimes bothered me to hear him attribute so much wonderful intricacy to the specious powers of evolution/natural selection. But I greatly appreciated his comment in the final chapter, where he said that, in the final analysis, "to espouse atheism is to be unscientific."
Read the book to find out what this veteran medical scientist means by that statement.
Read this book to find out what Ralph Waldo Emerson meant when he said:
"One moment of a man's life is a fact so stupendous as to take the lustre out of all fiction."
Read this book and nod your head in agreement with St. Augustine, who said:
"Men go forth to wonder at the heights of mountains, the huge waves of the sea, the broad flow of the rivers, the vast compass of the ocean, the course of the stars; and they pass by themselves without wondering." (From Confessions, Book X, chapter 8).
Read How We Live, and do some proper wondering.

Dr. Nuland has written a well constructed book that leads the reader through a bit of anatomy, together with helpful discussions of the Greek and Latin words behind the anatomical names. However, the main focus is on how the body strives to maintain health and how the emergent phenomena of 'Human Spirit' plays into that maintenance. Contrary to the impressions from earlier reviewers, I found this book to be extremely well written, and carefully constructed so that the reader is exposed to the nature of the material in a well ordered way. I loved his writing style, I loved the emotion behind the stories he told, and I appreciate his struggles with how the human spirit could emerge from the chaos of evolution. I highly recommend this book.

This is a very well written book especially if the sciences, history or medicine is not your strong suite. Mr. Nuland took a potentially boring subject (what history subject isn't?) and has made it very interesting to read.

I like math, but in school and college, I never did well with subjects that related to history and especially with science. I don't even read that much. However, I could not put this book down. I liked it so much, I have read it 3 times. It is a very enriching book. Thanks Mr. Nuland for restoring my confidence in being able to comprehend subjects that deal with medicine and history! My wish list is for Mr. Nuland to put this out on audio cassette.

Thomas Jue

In this book Nuland takes the reader on an odyssey of western medical history spanning antiquity to modern medicine. It takes brief snapshots of a few of the physicians who have molded medicine into what it is today. He vividly brings to life colorful people like Vesalius who refused to accept the status quo of his time, but instead rejected popular theories because they did not agree with experimental results.

This is an inspirational must read for those who are either in the field of medicine or enjoy medical history.

Nuland's works are like pop-up books for adults. First, he gives you the big picture, an overview. Then, he focuses in on his subject and then -- POP! -- your reward, in the form of tasty tidbits of consistently obscure and delightful information.

This book, Doctors, is no exception. Throughout the book, you're learning without even realizing it, and at the same time, gaining historical and philosophical insight into the progress of medicine through the ages. From ancient Greece to the modern halls of medicine, Nuland will take you along through a Disneyland of exploration.

From his writing, it's easy to tell that even after a prestigious career, he's still as excited by medicine -- and as awed by its great practitioners -- as he was on his very first day of pre-med.

Nuland's prose IS a challenge; he usually assumes some prior knowledge on the part of readers, and a university and science background are helpful. If you've got that, though, then hop aboard for the ride of your life. I guarantee you, you'll never look at an emergency room the same way again.

Dr. Nuland's way with the English language is as eloquent as the topic of discussion in his newest work.

This book is not so much an exploration of "The Body," as it is an exploration of the actual ways Medicine has sought to explore its own discipline.

It is a fantastic, but all too short trip into the great minds of Medical thinkers, including Nuland himself, and the ways in which they have accelerated its progress; indeed, it also makes light of the ways, doctors, have stifled it.

It is, very much, vintage Nuland -with its prose, and offerings of philosophical insight. But it is not like his other books -he doesn't deal with life and the body as in his other achievements. But, if you like Medical history; if you like knowing about the ways some of our most sacred accomplishments in the field came about, then buy this book.

"The Mysteries Within" is a book about the myths that have developed in medicine over the last several millenia. In it Dr. Nuland discusses the evolution of thought concerning various organs. He also goes into detail describing where some modern words and expressions have come from. Interspersed with these histories are an occasional jewel from his career as a surgeon. Overall it is a good book, although it seems slightly slow at times.

I come from a medical family (Dad, a surgeon; Mom, a nurse; Little Sister, a pediatrician). Unfortunately, I hit the limits of my scientific education in high school biology. So, I picked up this book in hopes that it would reveal some of the mysteries of their professions and give me some insight into the reasons why people treat often treat physicians as magicians.

Nuland's book doesn't strip away the mystique of the surgeon's work, nor does it really capture the nature of a modern surgical practice. Instead, it provides an overview of many of the structures that a surgeon encounters in his day to day work (stomach, spleen, liver, etc.) and describes the mythology that accompanies each organ. He also provides tales from his own cases about where these myths have broken down and ultimately posits that science should triumph over mythology.

Nuland tells a good story, both anecdotal and historical. His writing is clear, although he tends to use two words when one might do. The organzation of the book is clear and he does a fine job a translating medicine into layperson's terms.