The welcome visitor - John Humphrys

Death is a subject modern society shies away from. Even doctors avoid the word. But if we regard death as a failure in our desire to prolong life, can we ever arrive at a humane approach to those whose lives have lost meaning? Are we keeping people alive simply because we can?
Here, John Humphrys and his co-author Dr Sarah Jarvis take a wider look at how our attitudes to death have changed as doctors have learned how to prolong life beyond anything that could have been imagined only a few generations ago, and confront one of the great challenges facing the western world today.
There are no easy answers but the first step must surely be to accept that death can be as welcome as it is inevitable.

John Humphrys has reported from all over the world for the BBC and presented its frontline news programmes on both radio and television, in a broadcasting career spanning forty years. He has won a string of national awards and been described as a 'national treasure'. He owned a dairy farm for ten years and has homes in Greece and London.

This is an important book. It needs to be. Slowly, we are coming to realise that a life well lived might decently conclude with a death well and timely died.
Terry Pratchett

Compelling
Daily Mail

Impassioned and impressive
Sunday Times

Comforting... Honest... It is a relief to have some of the private struggles of dealing with death brought out into the open. He is determined to tell it like it is.
Daily Telegraph

a powerful, compassionate book, movingly illustrated
FT on Sunday

Tremendously uplifting ...deserves the widest readership
News Talk

illuminating and helpful
The Times