About half a million people die in England each year, more than half in a hospital and only 5% in a hospice. Doctors such as Seamus O’Mahony have the unenviable responsibility of deciding whether to continue aggressive medical treatment of dying patients. His aim here is to prompt a wider conversation about death and dying. He argues that society’s obsession with control and individualism has changed our relationship with our own mortality and medicalised death. He is suspicious of attempts by well-intentioned people to “tame” death, “to strip it of its awesome grandeur, to turn it into a process that can be managed, policed, workshopped”. O’Mahony explores the idea of a good death in literature and philosophy, and shows that reality is far more chaotic and unpleasant. He opposes assisted dying (“founded on a rather naive view of human nature”): instead he argues that his own profession needs to embrace a new phase “characterised by a creaturely approach to our patients”. A searingly honest and humane book that is challenging yet profoundly important.
• The Way We Die Now is published by Head of Zeus. To order a copy for £6.79 (RRP £7.99) go to bookshop.theguardian.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over £10, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of £1.99.
