They Died, and Lived to Tell All About It

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Electric circuits will break your heart every time. Take my cellphone (please): it went out in the rain a few weeks ago and then lay neglected in a sopping wet coat pocket overnight. The next morning, it was dead.

Nothing revived it, not the usual prayers and imprecations nor the overnight immersion in rice recommended by Internet experts. After 72 hours, it was clearly time to give up and head for the store.

But when the moment came to unplug the corpse from its charger and plug in its immensely expensive replacement — executioner, stay your hand: Look who’s waking up!

Dr. Sanjay Gupta’s new book deals with the human equivalent of this little drama, and if it seems insensitive to equate a smart piece of plastic with a catastrophically ill human being, absolutely no disrespect is intended, but the analogy still holds. This is a can-do book about death by the well-known medical correspondent for CNN and Time (and near nominee for surgeon general), which means no bittersweet philosophic reflections on the natural arc of human existence. The subject is simple science: the ways the body’s circuitry can betray us, and the ways we are learning to fight back.

The science, of course, is far from simple, which makes it a fitting showcase for Dr. Gupta’s skills as a popularizer. Straightforward and readable, it is a book that will undoubtedly infuriate many experts with its elisions and oversimplifications.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/24/health/24books.html?th&emc=th