Dying

`This is a powerful, poignant and lucid last testament, at once an eloquent plea for autonomy in death, and an evocation of the joys, sorrows and sheer unpredictability and precariousness of life. Taylor wonders if she has found the `right tone' for her story. Her readers will find that she has. It's a fine contribution to our much-needed dialogue with death.' * Margaret Drabble *
`Cory Taylor's book is both a precise and moving memoir about the randomness of family, and an admirable intellectual response to the randomness of life and death. We should all hope for as vivid a looking-back, and as cogent a looking-forward, when we reach the end ourselves.' * Julian Barnes *
'It takes courage to contemplate one's death and extraordinary clarity and generosity to write about it like this. Dying: A Memoir is a gift to us all, a book that is not afraid to navigate darkness and that sees us through to the end...We need books like this, a guide to dying, but also, and especially, a guide to living.' * Australian Book Review *
`Dying is a powerful, passionate, unflinching memoir about facing death and the choices and difficulty and beauty that entails. It should be required reading for all of us.' * Ann Hood, author of Comfort: A Journey Through Grief *
`A fine and sorrowful finale.' * Sydney Morning Herald *
`[Taylor] commands a glorious structure and control. She arrives at "the edge of the words" and in her final paragraphs performs an alchemical transformation of her book's imagery and metaphors and moments into something light and quite transcendent - the whole not only surpassing the sum of its parts but illuminating them with a magnificent blaze.' * Australian *
`Funny, insightful and, most of all, consoling. It does what all great writing does: makes you instantly feel less alone. It's the best thing I've read this year.' -- Benjamin Law * Good Weekend *
`A clear analysis of the dying process and another important contribution to the debate about drug assisted euthanasia... [Taylor's] memoir offers as much insight and reflection as anyone could deliver in just 150 pages.' * HealthSpeak *
`Taylor's challenging, touching, sad story about her dying, is a eulogic tribute to her immense talent, but one that leaves practical comfort to us all.' * Australian Women's Weekly *
`Along with the precision of her writing, it is Taylor's lack of self-righteousness that lends this book its very special quality.' * Guardian *
`2016 has seen the publication of a number of exceptional books by beautiful writers whose poignant tales takes us right to the edge of the abyss.' * Best Books of 2016, Australian Financial Review *
`Unflinchingly honest...This deep meditation is beautifully written and destined to be an important piece of the conversation surrounding death. Taylor's last testament to life is a welcome departing gift from a thoughtful and inspired author.' * Publishers Weekly, starred review *
`What is truly profound about this book is that-though it ought to be harrowing-it is astonishingly easy, if not strangely uplifting, to read. In part, this is because the narrative voice is so gentle, and tightly controlled. Every scene has a radiant quality; it glows.' * Conversation *
`...As this quietly remarkable book illustrates, that kind of looking entails its own tribute to the sweetness of life.' * Radio Australia *
`An eloquent plea for a more humane approach to death and a moving meditation on the life that leads to that end.' * Kirkus Reviews, starred review *
`Brave and funny, rare and honest.' * Bookseller UK *
`The book rings louder in my imagination the more time I spend apart from it, a kind of reverse Doppler effect. Dying is bracing and beautiful, possessed of an extraordinary intellectual and moral rigor. Every medical student should read it. Every human should read it. My own copy is so aggressively underlined it looks like a composition notebook.' * New York Times *