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And Finally

Matters of Life and Death, the Sunday Times bestseller from the author of DO NO HARM

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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

As a neurosurgeon, I lived in a world filled with fear and suffering, death and cancer. But rarely, if ever, did I think about what it would be like if what I witnessed at work every day happened to me. This book is the story of how I became a patient myself.

As a retired brain surgeon, Henry Marsh thought he understood illness, but he was unprepared for the impact of his diagnosis of advanced cancer. And Finally explores what happens when someone who has spent a lifetime on the frontline of life and death finds himself contemplating what might be his own death sentence. As he navigates the bewildering transition from doctor to patient, he is haunted by past failures and projects yet to be completed, and frustrated by the inconveniences of illness and old age. But he is also more entranced than ever by the mysteries of science and the brain, the beauty of the natural world and his love for his family. Elegiac, candid, luminous and poignant, And Finally is ultimately not so much a book about death, but a book about life and what matters in the end.


© Henry Marsh 2022 (P) Penguin Audio 2022

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Critic reviews

Henry Marsh may have retired from medicine but let's hope he keeps producing books as good as this one, which enthral as well as teach.
[And Finally] is unexpectedly fun, and the author is pretty much irresistibly likeable... diagnoses and remissions are described with wonderful candour... [and Marsh's] discussion of end-of-life care and assisted dying is the best essay I have read on the subject.
[Marsh is] deeply reflective, the result is a bit like sitting in the pub with the smartest person you know.
Beautifully written... A thoughtful journey into his experience as a doctor-turned-patient, enlivened with a wonderful black humour and a gimlet eye for comforting nonsense... One couldn't wish for a better guide. (Steven Poole)
His dignified introspection is a joy. (Clare Chambers, author of SMALL PLEASURES)
And Finally is a close and courageous look at the prospect of death by someone who has seen it more clearly and more often than most of us, and who writes with great fluency and grace. Henry Marsh is a great neurosurgeon: he is also a very fine writer. I admire this book enormously. (Philip Pullman, author of HIS DARK MATERIALS)
A beautifully written collection of memories, thoughts and life lessons... And Finally will no doubt prompt others to contemplate their own existence and, more importantly, recognise what is truly worth living for.
Vividly wry and honest... this slender, elegant book... is very much a memoir of enlightenment; the humbling, late in life, of a man of great skill and status... A wise and warm narrator, and his book will bring comfort to many - and educate doctors. (Melanie Reid)
[A] fascinating unusually revelatory, ultimately conflicted and poignant account.
Marsh... writes with appealing candour about his reluctance to investigate his own symptoms... [and he] is often drily funny.
All stars
Most relevant
Excellent narration, felt as though I was sitting around the table with the author reflecting on his wonderful career and life.

Excellent narration and great reflections

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Having loved his previous books (which I read in hard copy), I was keen for this one. Overall I felt it wasn't as good, but that's not to say I didn't find it worth a credit.

I always enjoy an author reading his or her own work, as there is undoubtedly a personal passion and understanding that comes through. March, although obviously not a professional actor, read it well enough.

I thought the chapters on the quality of life versus its length and assisted dying the most interesting and worthy of debate and would have bought the book just for these. They were extremely thought-provoking, especially for us readers who are at the latter end of our lives and who have been through cancer treatment.

His reflections on being a surgeon and how his attitude changed once he was a patient and how he would do things differently were he still in practice were also great chapters. Perhaps every newly qualified doctor or nurse should read these.

The chapter telling a fairy story he made up for his granddaughters was boring and, quite honestly, completely irrelevant to the rest of the book. He could have left it at mentioning that he made up stories for them. If I wanted to buy a fairy story I would have looked in the kids' section and found better written ones. Other parts of this book could have done with some serious editing, as there is a fair bit of repetitive rambling in places.

So overall I am glad I spent a credit on this, but wouldn't say it's a 'must get'.

Interesting, but not his best

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Henry thank you for sharing your journey and some history. Great book and not at all just about death.

Fantastic book

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Brilliant, sad, thought-provoking - a wonderful listen. My only criticism would be that it wasn't long enough. Thank you Henry Marsh.

Brilliant

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So interesting to hear a surgeon’s view of his own Cancer and how it impacts his life. Long May he live in a way that is acceptable to him and his family

Great story

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