Dear Life: A Doctor’s Story of Love and Loss

by Rachel Clarke

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Book cover for Dear Life

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'A magnificent, tender book' Independent

'Her words are brimful of love, grace and kindness' Guardian


'She writes with a tender, lyrical beauty' Sunday Times


From the Sunday Times bestselling author of Your Life in My Hands comes this vibrant, tender and deeply personal memoir that finds light and love in the darkest of places.


As a specialist in palliative medicine, Dr Rachel Clarke chooses to inhabit a place many people would find too tragic to contemplate. Every day she tries to bring care and comfort to those reaching the end of their lives and to help make dying more bearable.

Rachel's training was put to the test in 2017 when her beloved GP father was diagnosed with terminal cancer. She learned that nothing - even the best palliative care - can sugar-coat the pain of losing someone you love.
And yet, she argues, in a hospice there is more of what matters in life - more love, more strength, more kindness, more joy, more tenderness, more grace, more compassion - than you could ever imagine. For if there is a difference between people who know they are dying and the rest of us, it is simply this: that the terminally ill know their time is running out, while we live as though we have all the time in the world.

Dear Life is a book about the vital importance of human connection, by the doctor we would all want by our sides at a time of crisis. It is a love letter - to a father, to a profession, to life itself.

  • ISBN10 1408712520
  • ISBN13 9781408712528
  • Publish Date 30 January 2020
  • Publish Status Out of Print
  • Out of Print 5 March 2021
  • Publish Country GB
  • Publisher Little, Brown Book Group
  • Imprint Little, Brown
  • Format Hardcover
  • Pages 336
  • Language English