Excerpt from Do No Harm by Henry Marsh, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

What makes for a good death? Absence of pain, of course, but there are many aspects to dying and pain is only one part of it. Like most doctors I suppose I have seen death in all its many forms and my mother was indeed lucky to die in the way that she did. If I ever think about my own death – which, like most people, I try to avoid – I hope for a quick end, with a heart attack or stroke, preferably while asleep. But I realize that I may not be so fortunate. I may very well have to go through a time when I am still alive but have no future to hope for and only a past to look back on. My mother was lucky to believe in some kind of life beyond death but I do not have this faith. The only consolation I will have, if I do not achieve instant extinction, will be my own last judgement on my life as I look back on it. I must hope that I live my life now in such a way that, like my mother, I will be able to die without regret. As my mother lay on her death­bed, drifting in and out of consciousness, sometimes lapsing into her German mother­tongue she said:

'It's been a wonderful life. We have said everything there is to say.'

Excerpted from Do No Harm by Henry Marsh. Copyright © 2015 by Henry Marsh. Excerpted by permission of Thomas Dunne Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.