Unfortunately in our society we seem to have become afraid of dying and being able to talk to people facing death. I think I would chose to check out at some point before I lose capability of implementing the necessary "procedure" myself. It is no surprise to me that this book is rated in the insane-high level of Goodreads - it’s a necessary, heartbreaking work of the gentlest of people, a woman who I want at my bedside when it’s my time. I am a retired physician and I will be dying from metastatic cancer; I don't know when, I have not asked. Mostly a reflection on her years as a palliative care medicine doctor, Mannix shares with readers what the process of death looks like, what is valuable to people at the end, and why honest conversations about the one true inevitable event in our lives yields so much less fear and such richer endings.

WITH THE END IN MIND is written for the public perspective and not professionals working with the grieving, in my opinion.While I am broadly pro-euthanasia, I wouldn't have minded if Mannix had directly challenged my views by offering up new evidence to support her obvious concerns about euthanasia options such as those offered in the Netherlands. It sounds kind of harsh, yet one out of forty chapters made me lower my general score with one star.

The book starts with Sabine's story and looks particularly at the process of dying and the need for honesty at such a time. Skulls used as flowerpots, bodies made into compost on a body farm, corpses covered with rose petals, funerals conducted by men with dreadlocks and purple frock coats – what Doughty relishes are those rituals that acknowledge death, its bodily fact and its emotional enormity. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. In this unprecedented book, palliative medicine pioneer Dr Kathryn Mannix explores the biggest taboo in our society and the only certainty we all share: death.She clearly describes the actual process of death by gradual illness to the people in her care, their families, and the reader. I tried to read it from a dual perspective, as a professional and academic in this field but also as a person inquisitive about their own death and those of my loved ones. There are not enough hospice / palliative care staff to help with deaths now (the focus is still on cancer). When the news came a year ago out of the blue, my medical friends recommended this book to me and my family as their Peter (not medical) died peacefully of rapidly advancing cancer after a short remission.