How We Die by Sherwin B. Nuland
Published 1994 · 106,168 words · about 6 hours at an average pace · Science & Nature, Essays & Criticism, Memoir & Autobiography
How hard is How We Die to read?
How We Die scores 40 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it moderately challenging. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.
- Vocabulary: 55 out of 100
- Nuland uses heavy medical terminology (ischemia, atheroma, ventricular fibrillation) and Latin and Greek roots, but defines almost every term as he goes. The register is learned yet explanatory, closer to The Remains of the Day in clarity than to Ulysses.
- Sentence structure: 50 out of 100
- Sentences run long and balanced, with medical lists and literary quotations, but stay readable. Narrative case studies are plain and direct.
- Abstraction: 45 out of 100
- Most pages describe concrete bodies, organs and patients, though the arguments about natural death and aging are philosophical. It sits near Atomic Habits in grounding abstract ideas in examples.
- Information density: 62 out of 100
- Anatomy, physiology, history of medicine, statistics and case histories all appear on each page. Pace is measured, with repetition and stories easing the load.
How How We Die is regarded
How We Die holds a literary regard score of 69 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.
Prizes
- National Book Award for Nonfiction 1994, winner
Where the story of How We Die takes place
- American medicine in the early 1990s (1990 to 1994), the main setting