Marsh knows how to set a scene, how to create suspense and how to surprise the reader.

As Marsh is at pains to explain, doctors do not know as much as their patients want them to, and can only predict in terms of statistical probabilities. Now that he no longer has patients’ feelings to consider, he is able to be admirably cogent and honest.

There is nothing depressing about this book. Marsh's tone is measured, clear, sometimes wryly humorous, as he looks at himself, his foibles, his mistakes and decisions.

A blazingly honest book.

I was prepared to be bored by the subject and irritated by the author. I was wrong: given its subject – broadly, death and disease – the book is unexpectedly fun, and the author pretty much irresistibly likable. This is a very British book: in the US such a compendium of self-deprecation would doom any literary and elder-statesman ambitions.

Marsh has a playful way of writing about the human brain that is positively empowering.

A vividly wry and honest.

Poignant and thought-provoking.

Philosophical and scientific conundrums about brain surgery permeate the book.

And Finally offers a tender, at times apologetic account of a doctor-turned-patient whose chronic disease and awareness of the inevitability of death are compellingly navigated: first denial and anxiety, then acceptance and coping, ultimately gratitude for every moment gifted..

Advice is offered on how doctors and surgeons should avoid his mistakes, especially regarding communication and empathy, which he believes, like exercise, is hard work. But the book is far more than a 'how to' manual. It is a beautifully written collection of memories, thoughts and life lessons encompassing marriage and break-ups, a fear of dementia and climate change, an obsession with woodwork, and a compulsion for making things, despite constructing roofs that always leak.

...[a] beautifully written, autumnal memoir.

Immersive.

Compelling.