The purpose of this book is to show how patients, working with their families and physicians, can greatly reduce suffering at the end of life. Despite a desire not to linger while dying, many patients suffer because of excessive treatments that only prolong the dying phase. Even very knowledgeable patients and their families are unprepared to make decisions necessary to reduce end-of-life suffering because they are not emotionally or spiritually prepared to accept the inevitability of dying, and they don't know how to gain control over what is happening to them. This book is written as a guide to dying on your own terms through advance planning to limit futile and painful treatments and to obtain good relief of symptoms. You can't just do it at the end-you have to be prepared well in advance. It takes some work-mostly learning how to deal with doctors and your family-but it will help you to peaceful dying when the time comes. This book tells you how.

Thomas Preston's book called to me from a table in the Hospital library one afternoon. When I found the chief of medicine's name among the more recent borowwers in the library card sleeve I couldn't resist reading the entire book. I was an internal medicine resident struggling with the social pressures of caring for the sick and dying during my first year of residency; this book put that experience in perspective.

This book improved my skills as a physician with such admonishments as:

'if you don't enjoy taking care of patients, change your practice so that you enjoy it. Patient's can tell. You will provide better care if you enjoy your work. Make sure you enjoy what you are doing, patients notice'
'the key to being a good physician is giving a damn.'
'patients come to you for two reasons, they will tell one of them.'
It is filled with wisdom, and an explanation of the history of medicine's influence on some of the arcane and irritating aspects of medical education, and patient care.

For those familiar with
House of God, this book is an antidote for the cynicism, and hypocrisy we find in seemingly immutable customs of the ages. It is a serious, very readable, account of several past quack treamtents promoted by the 'scientific' western medical community. The reasons for the success of these treatments, and their failures are examined. This examination shows us the difference between healing and curing, between killing the disease and caring for the patient and in the process the reader may enjoy the pleasure a child knows when a joke is played on the teacher.

If you function in a healthcare setting, this book is worth its price and the time you will spend reading it.

Chris Anderson MD FRCPC

Would that the entire medical profession be possessed of a like-minded attitude regarding treatments, honesty with patients, and a true "bedside manner," as Dr. Thomas A. Preston. This is a "must have," for everyone who ever went to see, or will go to see, a medical man for treatment.
Anna Marie Fritz
Author of "The Dream Garden" crystaldreamspub.com

It took 17 years as an MD before Dr Preston faced that the MD's loyalty is to the profession rather than the patient. He now questions whether the down side of medications and operations is so great that it almost completely offsets the good done -- which would explain why people who live in areas with twice the rate of medical intervention do not live longer.

A good book from somebody that really knows the subject. Preston King have before organized lots of relevant articles about Hobbes, in four volumes. Now, he gifts us with an interesting comparative analyses of Bodin and Hobbes, about something that is important to everybody who was trying to understand State and sovereignity: how can we work with order and human beings?

his great novel, written in 1771, is one of those books that is written so much in the present moment of its own time that it becomes a valuable and fascinating time capsule for future generations. There is no more entertaining way to visit another time and place. There is no need for you to come to the novel already knowing anything about the eighteenth century, because Smollett has his sharp observant mind and all five of his senses open to his world for you--here you will read all of the sights, sounds, tastes, touches, and most memorably of all (for better and for worse) the *smells* of what surrounds him.

The grumpy-old-man-with-a-heart-of-gold Matthew Bramble takes his family and assorted hangers-on for a tour of Great Britain, visiting Bath, London, and many other places along the way. For lovers of Scotland, you are in for a treat here, as Smollett writes this novel as an important "P.R." job for his homeland to his skeptical English readers. The descriptions of Edinburgh, Glasgow, and the Hebrides make you want to book your airline tickets right away; Smollett has an eye for those aspects of the Scottish landscape and Scottish people that haven't really changed in the last 250 years.

This is an epistolary novel, written entirely in the form of letters with no central narrator.
The strength of this format is that it allows the reader to see the same places and events from the (sometimes radically different) perspective of more than one person. As a result, you get comedy, tragedy, farce, romance, satire, and a good adventure story all in one enjoyable package.

One word of caution, though: because of the epistolary format and the travelogue format, you shouldn't really approach "Humphry Clinker" with the expectations of finding a strong unified plot. This is something that we get mostly from the novels of the late eighteenth century and certainly the Victorian novels of the nineteenth century. There IS a plot--a good one--but just don't expect the plot to be the star of the show. If you read it as a series of memorable and sharply drawn sketches and characters and places, and for how well it captures what is unique to the time and place in which it is written, I think you will enjoy it a great deal.

One of the great things about these Amazon customer reviews is that they can alert you to wonderful books that you would otherwise not consider reading. "Humphry Clinker" is a prime example. An eighteenth-century epistolary novel may not sound too enticing and I would guess that few people other than students whose courses oblige them to, would read it these days. Well, I am here to tell you that you should! It is social satire at its brilliant best. Smollett satirized English society mercilessly, but was even harder on his fellow Scots. The result is a novel that is a continual and wicked joy to read.

The characters are finely drawn and their correspondence is written in very individual voices. We follow their adventures as they journey through England and Scotland in the years before revolution in America and France changed the world forever. It is a world obsessed with social class, money and advantageous marriage (so why did I say it changed for ever!). There is plenty of sharp humor and a deal of profound insight into human nature. Smollett's last and best novel, it is a wise and mature journal of Mankind's folly.

Incidentally, the graphic description of the spa town of Bath will make you never want to drink spa water again. Reading that particular chapter requires a strong stomach.

Full of social satire. A comedy with pathos. Insightful verbal blunders. This picaresque book of travel letters is a hoot with a most satisfying conclusion as the characters get their come-uppance and rewards. I love the distinct and lively images that shine through the puns, word games, and allusions.