In this bumper book review I have reviewed the following 10 books: Helman C, ed. Doctors and Patients: an Anthology. Abingdon, Oxon: Radcliffe Press, 2003:1 85775 993 1; Coulehan J. Chekhov’s Doctors: a Collection of Chekhov’s Medical Tales. Kent State: Kent State University Press, 2003: 0873387805; Glaister L. As Far As You Can Go. London: Bloomsbury, 2004: 07475 7095 7; Rogers J. The Voyage Home. London: Little, Brown, 2004: 0 316 72671 0; Salway S. Something Beginning With. London: Bloomsbury, 2004: 0 7475 6992 3; Murray J. A Few Short Notes on Tropical Butterflies. London: Penguin Viking, 2003: 0 670 91348 0; Lewis G. Sunbathing in the Rain. London: Harper Collins, 2002: 0 00 712062 1; Forbes p, ed. We Have Come Through: 100 poems Celebrating Courage in Overcoming Depression and Trauma. Newcastle: Bloodaxe Books, 2003:185224 619 7; Elfick H, Head D. Attending to the Fact: Staying with Dying. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2004: 1 84310 247 1; Lewis G. Keeping Mum. Newcastle: Bloodaxe Books, 2003: 1 85224 583 2.

Literature pays attention to the smallest, most significant details of how people are, can be, and have been: in the ways they relate to each other, individually, socially, and to our world. It forms a channel between the reader, and the closely observed. Since literary authors include some of our best and deepest thinkers, literature can also be a gripping and memorable way to communicate what they have deduced and how they have interpreted this raw observational data, using the full panoply of literary devices such as narrative, metaphor, …