I highly recommend this book for a successful affluent professional who was once blessed with a nice education, nice position, nice family, nice home, nice car, blah, blah, blah, but was suddenly robbed of them all due to being stricken by an unexpected and a terminal illness. This book gives a powerful account of Ivan Ilyich and the things that go through his mind as he, towards the end of his life, has not only to give up his extremely prestigious position due to a terminal illness, but to also watch life "pass him by" by observing people around him live their lives as they always had.

...so I could read this story in the original. This novella is an absolute masterpiece. It made me think about things my jaded self had long since given up on, like God, purpose of life, death, fear. Tolstoy has an absolute deadpan sense of humor, which was so subtle it took me a while to catch on (for example, Ivan's fatal injury occurs while he is hanging expensive drapery out to impress his friends--what a beautifully ironic, even funny way to point out the meaninglessness of his life?).

If you're like me, and don't have the time to slog through "War and Peace" but are interested in Tolstoy, try this book. It's outstanding.

The Death of Ivan Ilyich was a wonderful book that dove deep in to the realities of the death of Ivan. The character in the book named Ivan faces the fact that his life is going to be cut short, and he realizes that he never had the good life he wanted. I thought that this book gave a good realization on what death could be like, and what a person could truly go through. This book had a wonderful plot hat really left a person thinking, and wondering what would be in store for them. The book gave the reader a good sense of what Ivan was going through. Through out the book Ivan was denying the fact that he was going to die, and was in a sense going insane form all of his thoughts. In the end of the book, the author showed us how Ivan got over that insanity and how he accepted his fate.

An absolutely amazing read: probably the best book ever written. Travel with Ivan to Reno, NY and Yugoslavia and meet some of the scariest successful failures imaginable, and try to remember that it isn't fiction! These are portraits of our fallen heroes illuminated with Diogenes' halogen pen - yes, that really was ex-NY Jet superstar Mark Gastineau hoisting his teenage girlfriend's mom onto an exercise bike; yes, that really was the Godfather of Soul contrite before a local judge; and yes, it really was a bearded Bobby Fischer leading his circus into the war zone. Ivan has finally demonstrated his mastery of the craft, but God! I wish it were fiction. The Yankee stadium scene, with all of the unbelievable but utterly commonplace losers, hit home a little too hard. He has made a strong argument about neo-nihilist America, and it, ironically, is only his success as an author that counters it effectively.

I couldn't put this book down. My husband was reading it at the same time, and we actually bickered over whose turn it was to have the book. The author's insightful style of writing rendered the people he covered memorable and all too human. In the end, in was hard to decide which sketch was best--they were each unique and touching. I ended up ordering the book for friends. Some sketches were dark and disturbing, others hilarious and poignant, and all were thought-provoking. There seemed to be something in this book for everyone--and it's the type of book you wish would never end.

It is my opinion that it is very difficult to write an unbiased account of the death penalty just because it is one of those divisive issues that tends to galvanize ones opinion firmly on one side of the issue or the other. It is also difficult in that each reader is going to have a bias that will be read into the text. With that said I do give this author credit in that for the most part he was telling a story and trying to have it be a just the facts type of reporting with no of his bias leaking in. Basically what you have is the story of a few of the guards and executioners at one prison in the south and 3 executions they performed over the 1980's. It makes for average reading given that the guards profiled have completely dull and pay check to pay check lives. The most interesting thing any of them do is their duties with the death penalty.

So the author is telling us the story of some uneducated, rather low paid men who's biggest claim to fame and achievement in life is to work at a job where every few years they help to kill a prisoner. I was only surprised there were not more heath problems, drug abuse and divorce detailed. Overall I thought the book was a bit bland, there is only so many pages of how horrible these guys lives are that the reader can stay interested in. Sure the details of the executions are interesting in a dark way, but that is not enough to make the book a winner. I would keep searching for another title to read on the subject.

I have read a number of books on prisons, punishement of criminals and the death peanalty. I have yet to find one that was balanced and this book is no exception.

From the title and information on the dust jacket, etc., you expect an insiders look at the death penalty and the men who are given the unenviable task of applying it. Instead, what you get (primarily) is a look at the death house at Mississippi's infamous Parchman Prison and the 2 men who oversaw 3 executions there in the 1980s. The only form of execution that is covered, in a more than passing fashion, is the gas chamber, which as the book was published had been done away with in every state in the US.

To cover this subject fully, the author needed to explore the other types of execution in the US and speak to executioners in more than one state and who have performed executions by more than this method alone. His focus on death by gassing, which may be the most miserable form of death, is in itself, a staement against the death penalty.

There are better books on the history, types and operation of various execution methods. For a true view of the subject, I suggest one of them.

Solotaroff did a commendable job maintaining his journalistic integrity and objectivity, especially when reporting on a topic as controversial as capital punishment, and that I think, is the key to successful reporting.

The author provided a face to the otherwise annonymous executioners who serve the will of society (or at least the court system) by actually enforcing the sentence of death.

Solotaroff choronicled the life and work of a number of executioners, and discussed the emotional repurcussions of serving as a state sanctified killer. He was able to capture the tumultuous emotions that accompany a life at the switch, and a life of "playing god."

There seems to be a fine line between jailer and the jailed, executioner and murderer, and Solotaroff did a fine job of capturing these subtle differences, and providing the reader with food for thought in regards to the American death penalty.