In Praise of Atul Gawande’s Anti-Self Help Book,
Being Mortal
This Week on the Literary Disco Podcast
On today’s episode, Julia, Rider, and Tod talk about all the things human beings never want to talk about—death, aging, and illness—while discussing Atul Gawande’s seminal 2014 book Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End.
From the episode:
Rider: I kept thinking it’s like a self-help book that’s an anti self-help book. I hate the self-help genre. And part of the reason is because it’s always about, like, Getting The Results. “Here’s how to live a better life so you make more money or get laid more often” or whatever. It’s always a list. And this book is like, look, you’re probably not going to get everything you want. You’re gonna die. And you’re gonna get used to that idea. So start preparing for it now. And I’m like, thank you. Thank you for just laying it out there.
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