Mortal Lessons

Mortal Lessons, subtitled Notes on the Art of Surgery, gathers nineteen essays by the surgeon Richard Selzer. He writes about operating without softening what he sees, and the pieces range from moving to darkly funny.

The essays look at how the human body works and how it fails, and from there they turn to larger questions about the meaning of life and death.

This edition includes a preface the author wrote for it.