The Thing about Life Is That One Day You'll Be Dead |
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Author:
| Shields, David |
ISBN: | 978-0-241-95029-6 |
Publication Date: | Jun 2010 |
Publisher: | Penguin Books, Limited
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Imprint: | Hamish Hamilton |
Book Format: | Paperback |
List Price: | AUD $24.95 |
Book Description:
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'Mix equal parts of anatomy and autobiography, science and self-disclosure, physiology and family history; shake, stir, add dashes of miscellany, pinches of borrowed wisdom, simmer over a low-grade fever of mortality, and a terrible beauty of a book is born.' Thomas Lynch
Mesmerized and somewhat unnerved by his 97-year-old father's vitality and optimism, David Shields undertakes an original investigation of our flesh-and-blood existence, our mortal being.
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More Description'Mix equal parts of anatomy and autobiography, science and self-disclosure, physiology and family history; shake, stir, add dashes of miscellany, pinches of borrowed wisdom, simmer over a low-grade fever of mortality, and a terrible beauty of a book is born.' Thomas Lynch
Mesmerized and somewhat unnerved by his 97-year-old father's vitality and optimism, David Shields undertakes an original investigation of our flesh-and-blood existence, our mortal being.
Weaving together personal anecdote, biological fact, philosophical doubt, cultural criticism, and the wisdom of an eclectic range of writers and thinkers - from Lucretius to Woody Allen - Shields expertly renders both a hilarious family portrait and a truly resonant meditation on mortality.
'So pure and wide in its implications that I think of it almost as a secular, unsentimental Kahlil Gibran- a textbook for the acceptance of our fate on earth.' Jonathan Lethem