As featured on BBC Radio 4
'Funny and touching' Sunday Times
'Extraordinary' Observer
'Full of both wisdom and humour' Julia Samuel
'Funny, moving, brave' Jeremy Bowen
'I had the privilege to conduct Simon’s last broadcast interview - knowing his wise words on the page could live on afterwards' Emma Barnett
In his mid-40s, Simon Boas was diagnosed with incurable cancer – it had been caught too late, and spread around his body. But he was determined to die as he had learned to live – optimistically, thinking the best of people, and prioritising what really matters in life.
In A Beginner’s Guide to Dying Simon considers and collates the things that have given him such a great sense of peace and contentment, and why dying at 46 really isn’t so bad.
And for that reason it’s also only partly about ‘dying’.
It is mostly a hymn to the joy and preciousness of life, and why giving death a place can help all of us make even more of it.