Mortality

What Hacker News says

1. chistevSep 2026
   Animal Farm by George Orwell

   Night by Elie Wiesel

   The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason by Sam Harris

   Letter to a Christian Nation by Sam Harris

   Lying by Sam Harris

   The Road by Cormac McCarthy

   Cosmos by Carl Sagan.

   The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution by Richard Dawkins

   A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson

   Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl

   Mortality by Christopher Hitchens

   The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander

   https://www.rxjourney.net/list-of-books-i-finished-reading-i...

   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulitzer_Prize_for_General_Non...

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2. cancerhackerApr 2025
   (Edited to add: Sorry, too long of a post here. I didn’t bother to renew my domain this year)

   A timely piece I can relate to. currently starting my second week in a (US) hospital oncology ward after my 11th cycle of chemo. I was first diagnosed with stage iv colon cancer and after chemo, surgery, resections and stubbornness was NED from 2018 to 2025. The return is inoperable and I was given “six months to a year”.

   I asked if I’d be in pain when death came, and he said that I wouldn’t likely be - it would just be feeling more and more tired. That’s basically what’s been happening.

   The chemo itself hasn’t given me direct side effects like skin lesions or mouth sores, nor much nausea. The secondary effects on my kidneys (which were already doing poorly before this started) and liver (cirrhosis) plus the metastases in lymph nodes and lung leads to edema. Diuretics helped but flushed out my potassium, so there several months where they trying to balance those electrolytes.

   Anyway, a lot of my swelling was reduced (and they took 4L from two rounds of draining my lungs) but for some ungodly reason my scrotal sack decided it wanted to play too, and became the size and consistency of one of those half size basketballs you can win at fairs. it’s so bad that I actually requested a catheter. The swelling makes walking or anything else really painful.

   The oncology wing I’m in doesn’t seem soaked in the kind of depressing, institutional green malaise of slightly older hospitals but it isn’t a “nice place” to die (I don’t expect to do that this visit in any case). The older woman (70?) two doors down though - seems to be in constant pain and in and out of lucidity, shouting at everyone. Usually a phrase gets stuck on repeat for a few hours - the most heartbreaking was “mommy get my mommy I’m sorry mommy I’m a bad girl mommy stop it” yelled loudly for hours.

   This is a generic hospital though. Memorial Sloan-Kettering in NYC has a patient day lounge and lots of projects for child patients and patients families. Still not even approaching the quality described

   Sorry, rambling. Probably my way of compartmentalizing the anxiety.

   The other thing I wanted to say is that I really liked Christopher Hitchens “Mortality” and that Terry Pratchett’s very relatable death character shows up in all of his books. My favorite quote is from “Small Gods” as Death comes for the protagonist at the very end:

   > “Ah. There really is a desert. Does everyone get this?” said Brutha. WHO KNOWS? “And what is at the end of the desert?” JUDGMENT. Brutha considered this. “Which end?” Death grinned and stepped aside.

   Maybe I’m not afraid of death because as a devout atheist - well yea, we all get to do that at some point.

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3. quonnApr 2021
   This reminds me of the little book „Mortality“ by Christopher Hitchens where he describes his experience with this own terminal cancer.

   I remember how he describes this different world and also how mistaken the popular notion of „fighting cancer“ seemed to him when in reality it is a passive suffering.

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4. fossuserJul 2017
   If you liked When Breath Becomes Air I'd also recommend Do No Harm by Henry Marsh - it's similar in style (maybe like the book Kalanithi would have written at the end of his career). It still touches a lot on mortality. Here's a great chapter from it: http://lithub.com/aneurysm/

   I'd also add Hitchens book "Mortality" as a suggestion too.

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5. agentultraDec 2014
   Permutation City by Greg Egan takes the cake this year in fiction. Although a very close second would be the Hardcover Penguin Classic's edition of Frankenstein by Mary Shelley mainly for it's deftly abridged version and preface which gave a new dimension to the story for me.

   Non-fiction would either be Mortality by the late Christopher Hitchens or "On Numbers and Games" by John H. Conway.

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6. agentultraDec 2012
   Mortality, Christopher Hitchens
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