This book should be required reading for anyone with aging parents. Who am I kidding? Everyone needs to read this because all of us will face these decisions someday for ourselves or for someone we love.

The book talks about death with dignity. What makes life worth living when your body is at the edge of failure? How much medicine is too much? How can we do the right thing to make care for the elderly better in assisted living homes?

I read this book a week after my Mother passed away. I feel comforted by the book because it supports the decisions that were made at the very end of her life but it makes me feel terrible about my own lack of interest in her life while she was living in assisted living.

Very readable despite the subject matter. ( )

An important book, but gut wrenching to read. I wonder how many important conversations with loved ones will be started by people who read it. How much are you willing to suffer now for a chance at more time? How do you choose between options that are all terrifying? Who can you count on to decide for you when you can't decide for yourself? I hope all med students read it. One of the few light moments for me was how much doctors don't want to treat "Old Crocks" as we oldsters are known. I'm going to make a real effort not to seem vague and cranky next time I talk to a physician. ( )

Several years ago, when my husband and I spelled out our medical directives, I emphatically voiced to him that, if I became unable to communicate or move, I needed to have 2 conditions.
1. I needed to be near a window that opened to a cool breeze.
2. I needed to have a view of trees.

This books helps us understand why there is so so much more that needs to be included in that conversation.

If we are indeed the authors of our own story, we need to spend time and effort to craft the final chapter now. There won't be any opportunity for postscripts. ( )

I found it a difficult read with too many anecdotal stories about people's suffering. The questions raised are not new but I guess it's good if it brings wider knowledge and more understanding to the dilemmas we all face as we age. ( )

I give it five stars despite the book having some shortcomings. For example:

1) The author makes it sound far too likely that people know what makes them happy. (If I had a year/month/week/day to live, I have no idea what I'd want to do. Am I unusual?)

2) Not sure how to put this into practice given that:

- everyone's case is so different,
- you don't have a lot of opportunities to try these ideas out,
- and our knowledge is so incomplete.

3) As the author explains, despite all his knowledge of this material and that both he and father were medical doctors, he still made mistakes when it came to his father.

4) Lastly, I'd have liked the author to talk more about doctor-assisted suicide options. The little he did cover was incomplete and arguable. Consider this passage (hardcopy, p245)

"...by 2012, one in 35 Dutch people sought [legal] assisted suicide at their death is not a measure of success. It is a measure of failure."

The author doesn't explain why it's a measure of failure. Later, he seems to imply the # is too high. But his rhetoric is just too vague and I'm left thinking the # is much too low. In any case, a raw number like that is useless. What we really need to know is the ratio of people who had *the opportunity* for assisted suicide. So the ratio shouldn't take into account, for example, people who were hit by a truck and died instantly.

Still, it's a great read. ( )