Tom Lubbock has written a book about dying, and it’s the best book about dying that I can imagine. He began it when he knew he was dying (of a brain tumour) and he finished when he was so close to death that he could no longer write. Of course, it’s enormously moving. Much more than that, it’s a masterpiece of clear thinking. Lubbock tells us that, when you’re dying, when you know you have very little future, the present feels different. So does the past, when you believed in an indefinite future. He explains the mental contours of hope and fear, our guides to the world around us, with wonderful precision. Read this and do not flinch.
